Turner Valley administration expects no relief from its tight quarters at the town hall since its staff increased the last two years.
The Town submitted a final plea for the Southern Alberta Flood Recovery Grant to cover the lease of an ATCO trailer to provide more space to accommodate additional documentation and staff hired to handle mitigation projects after the 2013 flood. However, the request is likely too late.
Barry Williamson, Turner Valley chief administration officer, said the Town’s original application for the grant was approved shortly after the flood.
“We had a number of exchanges and were under the impression based on email and phone calls that that was going to proceed,” he said. “Apparently that’s not the case.”
Williamson said the Town didn’t get around to arranging for the trailer until earlier this year because it focused its efforts on other projects, including updating its water treatment plant to supply water to Turner Valley and Black Diamond, which lost its water treatment plant in the flood, and reconstructing the Decalta Road bridge.
“We had to spread the time we spent on every project appropriately,” he said. “Some projects would take a leap over others. It’s just taken us a while with the flood recovery to get to that piece.”
Williamson said the Town canceled the order after learning it wouldn’t get the approximately $400,000 required to lease the trailer, adding there were no financial penalties as a result.
Williamson said Town council had even approved removing $80,000 from reserve funds to pay for hook ups and other costs not covered by the grant.
“We ordered it earlier this year with the understanding that it was approved,” he said.
The Town expressed its frustration over the decision reversal at the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association meeting in September and has since submitted a letter to the government asking that the decision be reconsidered, said Williamson.
“We are still waiting for the final outcome,” he said. “The funding runs out March 2016 so we’re up against the clock. It’s unlikely we’re going to be successful. It’s unfortunate.”
Williamson said the lack of space in the existing facility caused a lot of inconveniences for staff during the last two years.
“We managed to push people in tight spaces,” he said. “It’s not a very effective way to run. We had a lot of meetings with consultants and various government officials in our council chambers and our staff kitchen. We had no official meeting room.”
Storage is also an issue, and the use of a trailer would have alleviated that, said Williamson.
“We’ve got maps and filling that’s everywhere, other than where it should be,” he said, adding it’s been placed in the Town garage and the staff washroom. “We were trying to create some extra office space for meetings and filing.”
Mayor Kelly Tuck is also frustrated over the loss of grant dollars that would have accommodated the Town’s staffing and storage issues.
“Through email were led to believe we were going to get the ATCO trailer to try to move some staff around because right now we’ve been stacked on top of each other,” she said. “We are not going to be done until April or May next year. It would have made a huge difference.”
Tuck said the situation at the municipal building has been anything but ideal.
“I have people who have to leave the room to go to another phone to have a conversations,” she said. “There is no privacy. When you have people stacked on top of each other then you know it’s tough to do business.”
