August 25th, 2021
During the RM of McKillop’s council meeting on August 25th, the RM’s Chief Administrative Officer, Brandi Morissette, noted in her Administration report that the RM has been receiving a lot of road complaints. She said the roads that ratepayers identified were across the RM, and many road complaints were from Resort Villages (RV) residents.
Councillor Don Whitrow said the road servicing agreements and the complaints from the RV, “…they want us to jump on this, but they don’t seem to want to pay anything towards it. So we need to get that finalized so that they know better.” Reeve Schmidt said he agreed and the RM would get involved.
Schmidt said he has been dealing with complaints from Island View. He said Island View wasn’t aware they had been paying for gravel, and the RM wants to meet with the Island View council. Schmidt suggested the RM should have meetings with all councils of the Resort Villages because they weren’t getting the information. Several councillors said they might not be aware of the cost of keeping the roads maintained.
Schmidt said, “This idea that we keep the roads for them so basically it’s on the backs of our ratepayers to provide good roads for the ratepayers of these villages just doesn’t make sense that that’s the case.” Schmidt said the Municipality’s Act says the RM has to keep the road in general repair and keep it safe, “We can just slow the road down that’s the way to make it safe.” He added, “If they want to work with us we are willing to work with them.”
Councillor Dixon said the council had decided to take the matter to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board, “…enough horsing around already.”
Schmidt said, “The level of service is the issue here. The residents of the resort villages have a different idea of the level of service to the level of service that we are negotiating on right now. We have a situation where we are negotiating on a minimum level of service but the level of service expected is a maximum level of service.” Schmidt said that if they wanted gravel, they would have to supply.
Dixon said, “It’s like everything else. The amount of service you want costs money.”
The RM council said that complaints coming from RV village residents should be directed back to their own council as that was their council’s responsibility, and the RM would deal with the RV councils.
“It’s not up to Brandi to have to take abuse from the RV Village stuff.” said Don Whitrow.
During the councils’ discussion with the Public Works Manager Travis Herman, Councillor Labatte brought up a road that needed gravel because it was a safety issue. Herman said the road belonged to the town of Strasbourg and that the RM grades it as they do the RM roads; however, Strasbourg hadn’t put in gravel this year. Schmidt said they would contact the town of Strasbourg to let them know it needs to be done.
Schmidt used Island View as an example because they had always supplied their own gravel. Herman agreed however implied the RM may have gravelled the road two years ago. Herman said Pelican Point also supplied gravel.
Schmidt said it is a concern because the RV’ believe the RM is responsible for keeping the road in a safe and useful condition. He said that the RM grades and mows the grass.
Councillor Gilbert said, “if there’s not much gravel on the road how are we supposed to keep it in a safe condition.” Schmidt said he went down the road the day before and noted there was not much gravel on the road. He said that Herman had tried to grade it, but “you can’t make anything out of it without gravel.” To which Herman agreed.
Councillor for the Resort Village of Sunset Cove, Tom Fulcher, said the four resort villages in the RM formed a consortium. Fulcher speaks on behalf of the group.
Despite Reeve Schmidt’s claim that the resort villages are expecting a maximum level of service from the RM, Fulcher said, “We have not placed any expectations on them at all other than to abide by the Municipalities Act which says to keep the roads in a safe condition.”
“Our position is that there is a minimum standard of what a safe road would be. A safe road would include being able to get our residents, emergency service vehicles and school buses into our resort in a timely fashion and keeping our ditches mowed.”
Fulcher said it’s common sense that if there is no gravel on the roads, they will turn into mud, making them unsafe. “If they are muddy roads can people safely travel on them? can emergency services travel on them? Can we get an ambulance in? can we get a police car in? can we get a fire truck in?”
Fulcher said that even though the Resort Villages do not feel they are legally bound to enter into a road maintenance agreement with the RM of McKillop and don’t believe the Saskatchewan Municipal Board would mandate it; that in the spirit of co-operation and community cohesiveness, they are willing to enter into one, providing some funding to help maintain the roads. He said that “We don’t believe the SMB would mandate us to enter into one however we are still prepared to enter into one just to get along with the RM. We are part of the community. We like to think we are part of the community. We truly do appreciate that there are costs to maintain these roads but we also believe that it’s the RM’s legal responsibility to do so, but having said that we are willing to provide some funding towards maintaining these roads. However it appears the money that we’ve offered isn’t sufficient for the RM. The money we have offered is 100% of the maximum rates that are prescribed under the Municipal Regulations. The Municipal Regulations prescribe what road hauling rates will be. So we, as resort villages, have offered the RM 100% of those rates…the RM has chosen not to accept that.”
“We said to the RM… if you don’t feel that is sufficient, your argument isn’t with the resort villages, your argument is with the provincial government who sets these rates.” Fulcher said the RM should lobby the provincial government through SARM, saying these rates aren’t sufficient. “Instead,” he said, “they are continuing to go after us over what they feel is inadequate financial contributions towards these roadways.”
- Jenifer Argue, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
Note: These reports may be abridged for content