The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association is hoping to make sure the concerns plaguing places like Beaverlodge are getting addressed. President Barry Morishita was in town on Friday and says funding and the uncertainty of it being given to places like Beaverlodge was top of mind for town officials.
“Infrastructure funding is an issue; people are trying to keep up and make sure those services are available long term and some certainty there would be helpful… [As well as] the provincial support for long term funding which runs out in 2023 and some certainty and predictability around that.”
Morishita says he is in talks with the current government to see if funding can be extended past 2023 or whether alternate arrangements will have to be made. Another issue he says he heard about was the lack of work being done on one particular major infrastructure project in town.
“The other thing in Beaverlodge that has come up was the state of their health centre. It’s very old and they’ve been waiting for some word on how that’s going to be approached.”
Plans for a new facility started back in 2016 when a joint task force put together an action plan for the future of health care services in Beaverlodge. It found that while residents were happy with health care services currently available, the hospital is old and doesn’t meet the needs of the growing community.
The town was then left in limbo in 2017 when it wasn’t included in Alberta Health Services’ 2017 capital priorities. Morishita intends to look into that project as well as funding talks with the government continue.