The first phase of the Alberta relaunch plan opened today, and many local businesses are looking at their options, as to whether they will open, or wait a little longer.
    The first phase of the Open Soon plan began on Thursday, May 14. To prepare for this, Mayor Heather Colberg sat down with Marley Henneigh of the Drumheller and District Chamber of Commerce and local Health Inspector Keith Lee on the Drumheller Mail Facebook page for a live forum to help answer questions from local business on how and when they can open. Lee notes that most answers come from the province’s guide called Workplace Guidance for Business Owners.
“It is literally the bible for those wanting to reopen,” said Lee.
    Black Mountain Roasters has remained open for take-out and delivery. Nathan Moore says he is planning to open when the province allows. This will mean 50 per cent capacity seating inside the coffee shop. Already with the changing weather, he says they are seeing more people getting take out rather than delivery, looking for an outing during this time of self-isolation.
    What has been the most eye-opening for Moore during the pandemic response is how the people of Drumheller have responded, showing great community spirit and generosity.
    Bruce Wade closed the family jewellery store when the province ordered, and are contemplating when they would be opening again. With the state of the economy and many people being off work, he is not sure how busy his shop would be. He says they will begin with limited hours when they open, and gauge it from there.
     Manager of the Homestead Antique Museum Gilles Danis is busy painting and making changes to the local museum before it opens. He tells the Mail they are aiming for June 1 to open. In the meantime, they are working on making the museum more suitable to operate during the pandemic. This includes installing Plexiglas at the front counter and changing traffic flow in the hall to keep physical distancing between visitors,
    “The pandemic has thrown us a curve, but it has given us an opportunity to do other stuff,” said Danis.
    He is not sure how the tourism season will launch, noting there is a possibility they will be inundated with visitors wanting to get out after being isolated for so long, or if people might just stay home.
    Lee says it is important for everyone to be cautious, methodical, and adhere to the guidelines.
    “With these relaunch stages, let’s take it slow and easy…and really be reasonable, and if we are, we will get to Stage 2 in as short of time as we can,” he said. “If people don’t do what is being asked of them, both businesses as well as the patrons, to get to the next stage is going to take longer.”   
    The Workplace Guidance for Business Owners is available at www.alberta.ca/covid.

Council got down to the business of budgets at Monday night’s, May 11, Council meeting and approved the capital budget and passed the Mill Rate Bylaw, setting the tax rate for 2020.
    The Council set the residential tax mill rate at 8.31196, an increase of 1.9 per cent over the 2019 mill rate. The education tax mill rate for residential was set at 2.67483 and the Drumheller and District Senior Foundation rate was set at 0.58222. This equates to an overall mill rate of 11.56901.
    This means for a property valued at $200,000 the taxes would be $2,313.80, compared to 2019 taxes of $2,267. For a property valued at $300,000, there would be taxes of $3470.70, an increase of about $70 compared to 2019.
    The non-residential total mill rate was set at 17.81293, an increase of about 2 per cent.
    This year Council was faced with a declining assessment, and a 1.9 per cent mill rate increase left a shortfall of about $180,000 in revenue. Rather than increasing the mill rate, council opted to work to find other ways to make up the shortfall this year.
    “If everything we budgeted for when things were normal (pre-COVID), we whittled, we chipped and we got it down to as low as we could,” said Councillor Fred Makowecki. “It is lower than our counterparts and we are probably going to spend the rest of the year chiseling and whittling to try to keep expenses down, and make this as little of an impact as we can on the community.”
    Residential assessment saw a 3 per cent decrease in value overall. Tax notices should arrive by the first week of June.
    Council also approved its capital budget. The capital expense in 2020 totals about $43 million, and it’s made up of about $2.5 million carried forward from 2019, about $7 million in new projects in 2020, with about half coming from grant dependent requests, over $19 million in 2020 for expenses related to the Resiliency and Flood Mitigation programs, and more than $14 million as possible economic stimulus projects should funding become available from higher levels of government.
    The initial budget called for about $7 million to come from infrastructure reserves. Councillor Jay Garbutt, concerned about the cost of the local COVID-19 pandemic response asked council to consider deferring several small projects and purchases, totaling about $900,000 coming from reserves, and to put those savings into a reserve for the town’s COVID -19 response.  
    “From an operating standpoint, we know that over the summer our expenses will be curtailed by not opening our expensive but beloved facilities, the Aquaplex and BCF, but we will not be receiving their admission and rental revenue either. It’s hard to imagine how many more, if any, staff could be laid off after now going through two rounds of layoffs or what functions and operations could still be cut. It’s equally hard to imagine how many property tax defaults or delays could occur this August. With all those considerations it’s truly foggy where we’ll be from an operating budget standpoint come September,” he said.
    “What that leaves us with, what is still under our control, is the capital budget, and I would consider it irresponsible, at a minimum, not to dramatically reduce the planned 2020 capital spend to reflect our uncertain future and our past and future COVID-related expenses.”
    Council was able to identify the savings and agreed to the amendment in passing the Capital budget.
    While tax rates cannot be appealed, a resident can appeal their assessment. For a property owner to appeal, the first step is to compare your assessment to other similar properties. This can be done at town hall. If you are not satisfied, you can file a written appeal to the Assessment Review Board Clerk at the Town of Drumheller Office. This appeal must be done within 60 days of the Notice of Assessment date. There is a fee to appeal, which will be refunded if the board rules in your favour, or the appeal is withdrawn prior to it being heard by the board.
    More information is available at https://www.dinosaurvalley.com/how-to-appeal-assessment or by calling 403-823-1314.