Second petition calls for Chestermere probe

Angry residents want answers about rising utility bills, municipal taxes

Chestermere residents delivered a 5,400-name petition to the province Thursday, demanding an investigation into council operations in the city of 18,500 residents just east of Calgary.

The petition is the second filed in as many months as residents grow increasingly angry over what they say are skyrocketing utility bills, soaring taxes and a lack of transparency on city council.

The previous petition was presented to council last month calling to disband the city-owned utility Chestermere Utilities Inc. (CUI) which has proposed a 25 per rate hike to utility bills aimed at making up for $1.3 million in unaccounted for expenses discovered last year by its new CEO.

“The sad reality is we need some help here. The great majority of Chestermere residents have lost their confidence in the mayor and the council,” said petition-organizer Laurie Bold to the Calgary Herald.

She hand-delivered the petition, which she describes as an “overwhelming vote of non-confidence,” to Edmonton on Thursday.

It was signed by 5,413 Chestermere residents, well above the Municipal Government Act’s requirement of at least 20 per cent of the population, or about 3,700 people in this case, required in order to launch an investigation.

Bold has said her own annual utility bills rose by about 23 per cent over three years when the city, then a town, operated the utilities. Things got worse four years ago when the utilities were incorporated into CUI, she adds, explaining that prices have gone up by 92.5 per cent since then, including a 23 per cent increase in the first year alone.

But Chestermere Mayor Patricia Matthews said a series of audits, as well as consultations with the CEO and the public, took place before the latest round of price hikes that angered residents. She added that the group’s concerns about transparency are unwarranted, as the city makes information about taxes, electricity costs and council decisions readily available through its website, social media, face-toface meetings and events, such as tax workshops.

“We’ve reviewed our budget this year. We’ve cut hundreds of thou- sands.

We’ve taken the steps that residents told us we needed to take in order to diversify our tax base.”

Even so, Bold says members of the council do not heed residents views, are not forthcoming with answers and have failed to supply sufficient responses to critical questions affecting the residents, including question marks about why CUI had botched its accounts and why taxes keep going up.

She alleged that, at one council meeting she attended, two men were kicked out for speaking up against rate hikes.

For her part, Matthews said attempts by city council to meet with petition organizers have been rebuffed, and she’s not entirely sure of the specific concerns being raised.

“We know there’s a petition, but we haven’t had the opportunity to talk to them about it — we made the offer but they haven’t taken us up on that,” she said.

Bold says two council members reached out to her over social media, but one rudely turned down Bold’s request for a one-on-one meeting. Bold declined to meet the other councillor because she believed she had already made her concerns clear and gathered the information she needed from the city.

Municipal Affairs spokeswoman Shannon Greer confirmed her department received the petition Thursday and outlined a detailed process that must occur before an investigation can be launched.

When a petition is received, the Minister designates a staff member to verify its sufficiency, then report back to the Minister within 30 days.

If the petition is sufficient, the Minister may appoint an inspector to carry out an inspection of the municipality which could include a detailed review of the municipality, its operation and its council members.

Matthews says an inquiry is unnecessary and that a municipal investigation could actually raise taxes because of the time municipal staff spend on providing the investigator with information, answering questions and digging out data.

“Our community is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have municipal affairs do an investigation that will find information that is readily available to any resident that wants to come in.”

But for Bold, who believes the city is being seriously mismanaged, the need for such an investigation is urgent. She says she’ll move if one doesn’t take place.

“I do believe, if the minister comes, she is going to be quite surprised with the information she’s going to get.”

We know there’s a petition, but we haven’t had the opportunity to talk to them about it.