Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) held its caucus meeting last week in Brandon where, leading up to the provincial election, Manitoba's Municipalities have four critical asks, according to the AMM website: Funding fairness & predictability, investing in core infrastructure, investing in people and finally, public safety.
Morden Mayor Brandon Burley Shared some of the other issues discussed around the table.
"A lot of it is around regulations for our water and wastewater operators and the education criteria being imposed by the province, as well as for ice plant operators. It's going to be a bottleneck for retiring ice plant operators due to new refrigeration license requirements. There just are not enough people getting into the trade because of how onerous it's becoming to certify an ice plant operator. Issues like that, some of them are not very glamorous, but they definitely affect our ability to operate."
When asked if ice rinks will close due to a lack of operators, Burley replied, "There are some in Manitoba that will not be operating this year because there's no certified operators and we are not in that position right now, but as every municipality has to have to struggle to find operators, it's going to become very competitive and it's going to become difficult for smaller communities, in particular, to compete for operators with larger centers that maybe have larger budget lines."
Of the Four Critical Asks by AMM, Burley said the one that stands out to him is the first one, funding fairness & predictability. He said predictable, annuated dollars to invest in infrastructure that is adjusted for inflation from the time it is onboarded until the time it is completed is one, he is taking to the polls this election season.
The other defining issue for Burley, when he goes to cast his ballot, is repealing Bill 37 (The Planning Amendment Act). He is calling for the Municipal Board to be dissolved.
Recently, a decision made by the City of Morden to deny a rapid multiuse housing unit on the corner of Victoria and 1st Streets in Morden was overturned by the provincial board, but Burley said it goes beyond that, saying "it is dead weight across the province."
"Our municipalities want to see affordable housing. We're extremely motivated to see it happen, but sometimes the information we have internally and the information that the province seems to not share within itself, is problematic to say the least. And then, you have unelected people making decisions overriding democratically elected people - and non-experts."
He went on to substantiate what he means by this statement.
"We have community planners, we have engineers, there are no community planners and no engineers on that municipal board. For a board that can't probably tell me the prefix for local dialing code, to make decisions about our community... We are the level of government closest to the people and as that, we are owed the respect of the province. I firmly believe that."
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