The City of Grande Prairie and County of Grande Prairie will be heading to arbitration to help wrap up the final stages of the Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework agreement.
An ICF lays the groundwork for services that are delivered between municipalities that share a common boundary. It can outline anything from highway construction from the city into the county, or wildfires that require a combined effort to put out.
“Both the City and County have dedicated significant time and resources over the past three and a half years to come to a negotiated agreement on shared services and costs that reflected the shared interests of our residents,” says Mayor Bill Given.
“The City of Grande Prairie believes that proceeding to the next step of neutral binding arbitration is the best way to finally bring resolution to this process and allow a positive relationship for the future.”
County of Grande Prairie Reeve Leanne Beaupre says the regional municipality is disappointed that the City of Grande Prairie has voted to stop mediation and have an arbitrator determine how the two municipalities will jointly deliver services. She adds the decision-making process is complex and will take time.
“We did spend a lot of time learning each other’s concerns, and we felt we were better served, and our ratepayers were better served by a decision that was made locally versus having someone impose it on us,” she says.
“We have only been working with the city for a little over a year and a half on the actual discussion and in mediation since just shortly before April. It may seem like a long drawn out process but I don’t think we had got to the meat and potatoes of the whole conversation until we got into mediation.”
Provincial legislation mandates that all ICF’s must be completed no later than April 1st, 2021.