By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Online questionnaire launched as first of several opportunities for locals to weigh in on City services

Sep 5, 2018 | 3:10 PM

LETHBRIDGE – The City of Lethbridge has launched an online questionnaire today as the first of several opportunities this fall for residents to offer input regarding their experience with City services, as well as their spending priorities.

Councillor Mark Campbell, chairperson of Council’s Open and Effective Government Committee, says this November council will set a new four-year operating budget, and now is the time for people to let council know what they think.

“It’s part of city council’s strategic plan. We wanted to get more engagement from the public, and we wanted to know what they were thinking. We want them to tell us what’s working for them, and what’s not working for them. With these discussions from the public it gives us an opportunity when we go into budget deliberations to understand what the people want,” Campbell said.

The questionnaire and other community engagement activities this fall will ask residents what their priorities would be if they ran the City of Lethbridge.

Residents can complete the brief online questionnaire here.

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Campbell says this is the perfect opportunity, as they’ve got a number of occasions for people to respond to things going on.

“We’ll have some more online opportunities plus we’ll also have some public consultations as well where people can give their feedback,” he continued. “That’s so important, and I think that’s one of the main things with this new council, we want to hear from everyone.”

Councillors want to know what’s bugging residents, what they think is important, and how would they run the city.

Lethbridge residents elect councillors, they’re the people who are using the local facilities and Campbell says sometimes councillors may not get an understanding of what is being used and what’s not being used.

“To get that response, then we become educated. That’s important, we need to know what everyone is liking and not liking. That’s all a part of running a city I believe.”

Sometimes people can get tripped up by the differences between capital budgets and operating budgets, but Campbell wants people to understand it’s about services.

“Services people can relate to more than numbers. What things am I going to that I really enjoy, and what does it cost? What does it cost to go to the rink, what does it cost to have the parks mowed, is it crucial for them? I think that kind of helps us understand, and that makes people become more involved,” Campbell stated, adding when they talk about services that gets people a little more interested in the process.

A big line item in the operating budget tends to be police and fire, and that’s expected to continue this year.

“That’s going to be big. The opioid crisis, the needle situation that we have, and the multi-layered problems that are a result of that crisis. We’re talking about homelessness, homeless shelters, detox, all of those things are all part and parcel of what the situation is. We’re going forward trying to find solutions to those, and we’re working hard on that. The city police are obviously going to a major and integral part of that going forward too.”

Even though it’s still summertime, the operating forecast presented at Tuesday’s City Council meeting showed that ice control and snow removal operations are on track to end the year in a deficit position of $1,970,000, assuming normal snow conditions in the last few months of the year.

Campbell says if that’s something people want to see more money put into, they want to hear from them.

“It’s going to be important and it’s going to be part of the budget. We live in a world where we have snow, it’s supposed to be an El Nino year, so they said, so maybe we won’t have as much snow and that’ll help. But we need to know how important snow removal is to people.”

These online questionnaires and upcoming public meetings are opportunities for people to weigh in, but residents make their voices heard year-round.

Campbell was asked what councillors are hearing from the public about most right now and answered because it’s so prevalent in the news, he truly believes it’s the opioid crisis.

“I believe it’s a safety issue for a lot of residents so what are we doing about that? Businesses are affected, people in their everyday lives are affected by it. So, I think that is first and foremost, and while right now, it is summertime and we don’t really talk about snow removal, it is going to come up as well.”

Campbell added that not everything being talked about are issues needing to be solved.

“There are things we’re really excited about as well, with the centre on the West Side that’s going to be fantastic. But we want to know, are people happy about that? What’s going to happen with the YMCA? What’s going to happen with the curling club? All of those things we’ll have to take into consideration moving forward.”

City Council members are scheduled to meet as a Finance Committee between Nov. 19 to 24 for deliberations and approval of a 2019-2022 Operating Budget.