The Association of Manitoba Municipalities is encouraging municipalities to send in their concerns.
Executive director, Denys Volkov, says resolutions are one of the ways the Association hears from its members throughout the year.
"It's a more traditional grassroots process of municipalities," says Volkov. "It's passing resolutions at their own councils first by the deadline of June 1st. Then those resolutions are forwarded to our regional meetings that we host in June. Then there is a debate and a vote on those resolutions as a district. After that, resolutions are reviewed by our resolutions committee. Only those resolutions that are applicable to the majority of municipalities in Manitoba are forwarded to our annual convention in November."
He notes the next step sees the resolutions debated by the entire AMM membership, comprised of all delegates who attend the fall conference.
"If they're passed, they're forwarded to the provincial government or sometimes the federal government for follow-up," continues Volkov. "Then we begin our advocacy process to make sure that the intentions of those resolutions are implemented down the road."
Volkov says one of the popular resolutions from years past was to seek money for the municipal roads and bridge program.
"It was sort of removed and then, as a result of the action, a lot of municipalities passed the same resolution to reinstate it," adds Volkov. "The funding was brought back in a different form, but it was brought back. That was an example of our members lobbying on a resolution that came out of the decision of the government they didn't like."
He adds this is only one of several ways to inform the AMM of a municipality's issues, and they always encourage these organizations to not wait.
"Let us know what the issues are," says Volkov. "We always encourage municipalities not to wait to pass the resolution because this whole process could take a long time. We always encourage our members to reach out to us. If they have an issue they would like to lobby us on, they can send us an official letter. They can send us their own resolution, and our board can act on it right away rather than sort of waiting for the process to unfold."