On Wednesday Jan. 4, Mayor Nolan Crouse sat down with the Gazette editorial board to discuss the year in review, the issues that arose and what the city faces both in 2012 and in the years ahead. In the first of a two-part question-and-answer series, the mayor talks about the highlights, bong shops and relations with the county. Part two will appear in next Wednesday's Gazette.
Q: What would you consider the highlights and the lowlights of the year that's just passed?
Coming out of an election, probably the important part was to find what the new council was going to be like, so that ended up being a challenge because it is a new council. And with that there was a constant assessment of the corporation. I don't think you want to call it a highlight or lowlight, but ultimately you end up making a decision with the city manager and that was important. It was important that decision is made one way or the other for the health of the corporation because there were some questions right from the beginning from the new council.
I think that the important part from a positive point of view was the embedding of thinking of a new council and the corporation and, to some degree, the community on some of the economic development. I think this is my third council and each council tried to push it forward in their own way. But I felt it was a little deeper instilled in this council so that was a little bit of a highlight.
On the environmental side I really felt that while there was a lot of skepticism to the change to the solid waste program, it's really two years of significant change going through what we had with the blue bag program and then the waste bin program
I thought another highlight is, we have worked on in the last year a lot of communication processes. Whether or not they ultimately raise the bar in terms of two-way communication with the community, everything from web streaming to town halls to Facebook to Twitter to columns, every one of those was intended to raise the entire involvement and two-way communication in the community. I thought that we've done what we said we were going to do.
Q: Has there been more interaction?
We didn't have Facebook interaction a year ago so is it more? Well it's more because we've got it now. We've got Twitter interaction so is it more? Yes. We've got 22 individuals who came to the open house forum at budget time and the year before, there were 21 and the year before there were 17. So is it more? Well if you do it often enough, hopefully you can get to 30 to 40 to 50.
On the social side of the community, I think that if it's a trend, it's going to feel pretty good in two or three years, but the amount of crime that's being reported and the amount being measured and monitored by the RCMP has declined for about five straight quarters, I think it will be interesting to see if that's a sustainable trend. The intent is, if you can increase community involvement or engagement and it doesn't matter whether it's a block party or RCMP in the schools or the drug dog or DARE programs, the city council getting into the neighbourhoods … we've got neighbourhood programs going on in Akinsdale and Deer Ridge. We've probably got about 10 groups in the last 18 months. And the police are getting into schools with liaison officers and all the youth development work we're doing.
Q: You've been very outspoken about bong shops in the community. What is driving you?
It's wrong. I just think that there are so many fundamental things that are wrong with this growing industry. Why would we want to encourage this? Why not discourage it instead of encourage it? I know it's a small issue for a mayor to be tackling but why would you nurture it? Why would you allow it to happen? So tackle it. I am. You hear criticism across Canada, when will politicians stand up and be counted? When will politicians take a tough stand? When will politicians do this? Strap on a set of something.
Q: We've had two reports now on light industrial land — first our needs and then our locations. What was it within that first report that you disagreed with?
I don't know if I disagree. I have anxiety because we annexed land based on, and the landowners who were annexed were told, the premise it was residential so I've had anxiety about these promises.
Q: Were they actual direct promises?
I sat at all five days of hearings with the Municipal Government Board when the landowners, one after the other, and [former mayor] Richard Plain and [director of planning and development] Curtis Cundy said we need this land, not for industry but for getting to 105,000 people. So part of my anxiousness was what commitments we've made to landowners. The other part of that is maybe the most important ingredient to non-industrial growth is willing landowners. We don't have willing landowners.
Q: What about the suggestion of starting another annexation.
That will be an interesting vote when we get to it. I haven't decided where I am on that yet. I don't know that this council will vote to begin an annexation process, but it will be interesting in that it will have to be on some council's radar. I'm on the fence with that right now still. Initially I wasn't, months ago. I'm starting to not see any options other than the process of annexation. I think you'd have to have a lot of conversations with Sturgeon County first but you know a hostile annexation, that's a tough road to go down. You have to have time and money and patience and political will to do it.
Q: How are relations with the county right now?
I wouldn't say they're great. There's not a lot of things that are going on, but if you start to look at some signals, they pulled out of the intermunicipal development plan (IDP), they didn't provide continual funding for Servus Place, which is $100,000 per year. After five years that stopped. We provided support for the 127 Street alignment, we provided support for the Quail Ridge development. But I was disappointed they didn't come forward and continue with Servus Place. I thought that was a real signal.
Part two: Wednesday, Jan. 11
