Bucking plans for his retirement from the town’s administration this year, municipal manager George Krefting will continue on with his job until at least October 2011.

Krefting, 63, had planned to let his contract with the town expire this year following the October election. The tentative plans were for the current town council to contract a new municipal manager right before the election and for Krefting to stay on for a month after the new council takes its seats. This was meant to help ease the new manager into the new job.

Krefting explained town staff and council has realized this might not be the best idea. It meant that an outgoing town council was going to hire the municipal manager that was going to work with the new council. 

Krefting explained that letting the new council hire its own municipal manager would probably create better conditions to meet the needs of the town.

He also said part of the reason he has decided to extend his contract with the town is that there are still several projects he would like to continue work on.

This includes the expansion of the new library (the library is run by Krefting’s wife, Judy) and solving who will run the waste transfer station in 2011.

Parks Canada currently runs the transfer station at a loss. It will cease operating the station next year. The municipality is now exploring just who will manage the station in the future. Options include the town taking over the station or hiring a private contractor to run the site.

However, Krefting said that should the town take over current operations at the site, then there would be costs to ratepayers in Jasper. If a private contractor takes over the site, then there would likely be fee increases at the station, he said.

He said the site was an important location for Jasper and the town in particular was interested because of the space it provides for recycling and composting, two goals that the town of Jasper is interested in implementing at greater levels.

“We’re trying to come up with a solution to keep the station providing the same level of service as before,” said Krefting. 

Deciding on how the management of the transfer station will work in the future is taking a little longer than expected, Krefting said. Meetings that were supposed to happen over the summer have been postponed due to absences of the necessary people.

Krefting said that overall, he was happy to continue working with the town.

“I enjoy the work and what I do and I’m happy to be able to keep doing it,” said Krefting.

Aside from this year’s plans for his retirement, which were put in motion about a year ago, Krefting said there had been no formal plans for him to retire. 

“It’s something I’d thought about, but it was never set in stone. A lot of the discussion around this has really just been speculation,” he said.