Two weeks ago, I attended a joint municipalities meeting where representatives from Waskatenau, Warspite, Smoky Lake, Bellis, Vilna and Spedden meet to discuss matters affecting their communities. These representatives included mayors, councilors, the reeve of Smoky Lake County, Ray Danyluk - MLA for Lac La Biche-St. Paul, the sergeant in charge of Smoky Lake RCMP, and a small handful of spokespersons from NGOs such as the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance, promoting awareness of how the North Sask. River south of Smoky Lake county is affected by withdrawals and upstream usage.
In addition to these people of interest, there were also representatives from the local School Board present, who spoke about the potential closure of multiple schools in the county due to decreased student numbers and increased overhead costs in offering rural education. Indeed a pressing issue that has manifest itself in this county.
It was very interesting to see that no members of the general public were present, and even more interesting to observe how county and town officials interacted with each other. In this meeting, I observed some clash of opinions over the matter of a seniors dwelling. The Town of Smoky Lake had one proposal on the table, while the County of Smoky Lake had another. Haughty remarks were exchanged between the county reeve and town manager regarding who's plan was better, more efficient, etc. These exchanges ran on for a period of one hour, about a building plan for 2014.
Politics can be tiring I suppose.
After everyone at the meeting had an opportunity to bring some information to the table, including crime reports, fire preparedness, and the ongoing status of grant applications, the meeting was finally adjourned at 10:45 PM after starting at 6:00 PM.
I did learn a great deal, though. Despite the period where two conflicting officials would not yield on their ideas for the region, the collection of important public figures to share knowledge on crime, resources, policy, education and healthcare, are beneficial. By bringing together these individuals, each one is allowed to share knowledge on their subject and add it to the pool of knowledge accumulated by the end of the meeting. After which, participants of the meeting were allowed to ask plenty of questions to each other. Of course, this meeting was for informational purposes only; however, the intent is to clarify issues facing the county and the population centers within it, thereby allowing officials to take the appropriate actions and notify the public.
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ReplyDeleteSounds like it was an exhausting meeting! Glad you were able to take some learning from the experience
ReplyDelete*had to remove my first comment due to spelling errors which I knew you would call me on
My research presentation mostly consisted of a bit of a ramble of all the things I have been doing this summer and what I will be working on for the last little bit. I would say you could pretty much include anything you wanted including elements of your group project. Once done I realized the whole thing was easy going...
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