Alberta municipalities feeling the financial pinch and looking enviously at their neighbours are keeping an eye on what's happening in part of northeast Alberta.
That's because the province has been dealing with a request from the cash-strapped City of Cold Lake that would expand both the city's borders and its industrial tax base.
The city, along with the commanding officer of 4 Wing Cold Lake, the Canadian airbase within the northeast oilsands community, wrote the province in January requesting the city's boundaries be extended to take in an air-weapons range north of the community. The range isn't used exclusively for military exercises, however. It is also home to an oilsands-related tax base, and the revenue from the base goes to Lac La Biche County to the west, not Cold Lake.
In order for the city to expand onto the air-weapons range, it would also need to annex land in the Municipal District of Bonnyville, and the MD, which already has a strained relationship with its urban neighbour, hasn't been that interested.
A day after Cold Lake fired off a news release to keep the heat on the province on the issue, the MD volleyed back.
"Unfortunately the solutions to municipal sustainability are not simplistic," said reeve Ed Rondeau. "Municipalities in northeastern Alberta must work together to create a win-win solution for all involved. " The assessment-rich MD already shares some of its tax revenue with its urban neighbours through an agreement.
Working together doesn't mean municipalities must solve the problems of their neighbours, he said.
"In our role as a municipal government," Rondeau said, "it is not within our mandate to address inequities of wealth among other municipalities within our region. That is beyond our role as a local government and must be addressed by other levels of government, both provincial and federal."
from Western Investor, April 2011
