Grande Prairie City Council recently held two public engagement sessions to receive feedback during their ongoing stormwater utility bylaw discussions.
Currently, council is discussing four potential models to shift stormwater utility collection from property tax to Aquatera billing. Mayor Jackie Clayton says the showing saw a great turnout; however, it’s too early to say where council is leaning at this point.
“I was really happy to see the number of people that came out to ask questions and get more information,” she says. “In general the conversations we spoke about yesterday had a mixed response because everybody is in a unique situation, and everybody is impacted a little bit differently depending on the model.”
Mayor Clayton says the conversation will continue and will be brought back during council’s March 11th meeting.
“I think at that time council will narrow it down to one model.”
From there, Clayton says the current bylaw will be dissolved and the changes will be fine-tuned based on council’s findings before coming back for a final time on March 26th for the ultimate decision and further input from council.
“There are many nuances to it, it’s not an easy conversation to have, there’s many considerations in the models, depending on the type of property you have, whether your residential or non-residential, so I think people need to learn more about their unique situation,” she says.
Clayton says survey results and feedback gathered from public engagement will be compiled and a report will be presented to council during their next meeting.
