Jasper councillors respond to presented concerns

After a resident presented a list of concerns to Jasper Municipal Council during a budget information session on Jan. 8, the Fitzhugh contacted each of the town’s councillors to give them a chance to respond to the criticism.

In a phone interview last Friday, Counc. Mike Day said allegations contained in the notes were out of line.

“It’s great to have rate payers want to talk to us and show an interest,” Day said. “But there’s certainly a boundary between honestly-held opinions and suggestions that individuals are acting inappropriately.”

The resident made false statements, Day said, and felt free to do so without recourse. The resident also proposed that council hosts a public forum to collect input, but Day pointed out that public sessions don’t generally get a great turnout.

“Council meetings are always open and we’ve had several meetings as of late where people have showed up to talk about things, ideas about paid parking,” Day said. “There’s meaningful dialogue you can have with people but it has to be a conversation, it can’t just be a one-way rant. Unfortunately I think sometimes the facts elude [the resident who submitted the concerns].”

That same day, Counc. Brenda Zinck and Counc. Rico Damota each replied to phone calls from the Fitzhugh in email messages.

Zinck wrote that there are a number of ways for the public to provide input to councillors, and that the municipality’s most recent survey gave a lot of good feedback. “Just a quick note on the capital budget,” she wrote, “this particular budget is a 10 year plan, so you’ll see, if you go back that there are really no surprises.”

In his email, Damota wrote, “Some of our locals have made some great points. Overall, my own personal opinion is that the majority of the community are [sic] happy with our work.”

By Monday, council had written up a detailed response to the resident’s comments and added it to the agenda package for this week’s meeting, which is too lengthy to print.

After the updated agenda package was sent out, Counc. Ralph Melnyk returned a phone call to the paper on Tuesday. “We have his notes as part of our agenda package today and there’s also a fairly detailed response from the municipality,” Melnyk said.

When asked who formulated the written response, Melnyk said, “We all had a chance to take a look at it, it was put together by I think a group of us.”

Counc. Brian Skehill returned a phone call to the Fitzhugh Tuesday after requesting some time to read over the resident’s notes. “I don’t want to get into a fighting match with [the resident]” Skehill said. “So the situation should be on the agenda today and we as council will respond definitely to [the resident’s] opinion, so I’ll see you there.”

Mayor Richard Ireland was unavailable for comment as he is on holidays until Jan. 26 and Counc. Gloria Kongsrud could not be reached.