Province approves preliminary inspection into Town of Coaldale administration

This means that Alberta Municipal Affairs staff will conduct a preliminary review of the concerns that led to the petition.

They will interview group member Jack Van Rijn as the representative who submitted the petition, as well as members of Coaldale Council and administrative staff with the town.

Van Rijn said the group was very pleased to receive the news and commended volunteers who helped circulate the petition.

“We need just under 1,800 signatures to meet the requirements of the petition and we ended up getting over 2,300, which ended up being more people [who] signed the petition than the voter turnout in the 2017 election,” he told LNN.

“I think it just sends a strong message to town council and administration that residents are not pleased with the goings-on at the Town of Coaldale.”

Van Rijn said there are over 40 concerns Citizens for a Better Coaldale plans on bringing up with Alberta Municipal Affairs.

“The two top ones for myself are the lack of transparency and communication,” he said.

“The big one that kind of started all this was the project referred to as the Civic Square, where the Town of Coaldale is planning on building a multi-million-dollar town office building and an outdoor civic square. There was zero public consultation regarding this expenditure.”

He said the way it’s supposed to work is that when large sums of money are going to be spent, town administration needs to get the community “enthusiastically involved” about the project before moving forward.

“Here, without saying a word, they went out and started buying out businesses and buildings on main street Coaldale to make room for this,” Van Rijn remarked.

“There was a total of five businesses that either had to close or relocate and again, it’s all about communication that the town was lacking on this particular project.”

Van Rijn explained that the preliminary inspection will be done via the online conferencing platform Zoom, as opposed to in-person, due to COVID-19. Information gathered will allow the ministry to decide if they will proceed with a full-blown investigation.

Alternatively, the ministry could come up with recommendations on how operations can improve moving forward, according to Van Rijn.

He said the group is still waiting to hear back on when the preliminary inspection will take place.

“The chances of the full inspection, if they choose that route, probably won’t happen before the municipal inspect in October,” he said.

“It’s important for [people] to know that this isn’t about the present council as per se, it has a lot to do with the present members of council but for us, it’s how business is done in Coaldale on the administration side and we’re hoping that through this process, we can hit the reset button with administration so that they speak to the citizens first before they start doing these multi-million dollar projects.”

Van Rijn added that since the petition was sent to the government in December, the Town of Coaldale has “done a complete 180” in its communication skills with residents.

“Like, the amount of press releases, the amount of social media posts, the amount of tweets not only talking about projects and goings-on in Coaldale, but also they’re doing a tremendous job of self-promoting – they’re applying for every award that they can possibly apply for,” he said.

“They’re trying to show the citizens how good they’re doing and they’re doing really good in many areas, but they’re also lacking in many areas as well that we need improvement on and I think this whole exercise, at the end of the day, it will bring everybody back to the same page so that moving forward, that Coaldale can prosper and we can carry on.”

by Justin Goulet

Province approves preliminary inspection into Town of Coaldale administration

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