With a new council and a new Reeve, Kneehill County is looking at forming partnerships as it moves into 2018.
Reeve Jerry Wittstock took a moment to talk with The Mail about what they are looking forward to in the new year and on the top of mind is working on Intermunicipal Collaboration Frameworks (ICF).
Under the new Municipal Government Act, the Alberta Government has implemented mandatory regional planning mechanisms for land use planning and working together for service delivery and cost sharing.
“They have given us a two-year window to get this done with adjoining municipalities, municipalities that are actually in the county, and the ones that are adjacent to the counties,” he said. “I think we have 14 or 15 ICFs to complete.”
These ICFs have requirements that include land use planning mechanism, a minimum list of services to be considered on a regional basis and a dispute resolution process for these municipalities, to name a few.
He says the County Council has adopted its budget for 2018 and in February they will be doing their strategic planning to set a course for the community.
He is looking forward to working with the new council identifying these priorities.
“We have five new members on Kneehill County Council, so the stuff we have on there now could still be there or there could be new stuff happening,” said Wittstock.” It takes some time to meld with a new council… we are coming together as a council.”
He is looking forward to the term.
“There are probably going to be some challenges come up, there always is in municipal government, a lot of it is going to come back to what the province wants us to do, That is always our burden,” he said.
