It was a intense 60 days in Carbon as a group of residents petitioned to remove Mayor Bryan Peever and Councillor Trina Anderson through the Alberta recall legislation. However, it was all for naught, as the petition fell short by a handful of signatures.
The province passed an amendment to the Municipal Government Act in 2022 that allows electors to petition to recall an elected official. This includes MLAs, municipal officials and school board trustees. Recalls can be instigated 18 months after an election.
After a petition has been verified, the recall petitioner has 60 days to collect signatures. The recall petition must be signed by 40 per cent of the population of the municipality.
The named representative of the petitioners was village resident Marie Kooiman. The 60-day collection period expired on June 26, and she announce on social media they were about seven signatures short of forcing a recall.
Despite not making the threshold, a petition with 190 signatures represents almost 40 per cent of the village, demonstrating many community members have concerns and has also raised awareness of civic politics in the community.
A notice of recall can only be submitted once per council member in a term.
While the petition fell short, the face of the Carbon Council will change in the near future as a by-election will need to be scheduled to replace councillor Brian McHugh, who submitted his resignation last month.
In June the Village of Ryley became the first municipality in Alberta to successfully use the new legislation to remove a councillor.

Drumheller’s community garden, and members of the Valley Growers community organization behind the project, will be featured in an upcoming post on The Zone 3 Perspective gardening blog.
Winnipeg bloggers, Cathy Cook and Justin Metzger, who are behind The Zone 3 Perspective, made a stop at the local community garden on Monday evening, June 19 on their western Canada road trip.
“We were trying to plan an outdoor vacation, and in July last year I started visiting other gardens around Winnipeg and decided to just take that across western Canada,” says Cathy.
The pair, along with their dog Potato, left Winnipeg on Saturday, June 17 and are making some 30 stops visiting community and private gardens along their trip to Butchart Gardens on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island.
Drumheller was the fifth stop on their tour; this was Justin’s first time visiting the Drumheller valley, and Cathy’s first time visiting since she was a child.
While in the valley Cathy and Justin got to enjoy some local attractions including the Royal Tyrrell Museum and the Badlands Interpretive Trail, and Cathy interviewed members of the Valley Growers organization while visiting the community garden, learning about their gardening experience and what they have learned over the years.
These stories, and the rest of their western Canada trip will be shared on https://thezone3perspective.ca at a later date.