Craig Gilbert | [email protected]
Jasper will finish 2019 without an environmental stewardship program.
Town council demonstrated they’re not willing to pick up the bag after Parks Canada decided not to renew a five-year contract that saw the Crown agency pay half the cost of the department, or about $88,000 per year.
Instead, they decided to see how making environmental mindedness a task for all employees plays out.
At the same April 4 meeting, they approved a five-year plan that lists environmental responsibility among the town’s six strategic priorities, alongside governance and social equity, public and community safety, housing, organizational health, economic health and fiscal equity.
“It’s not one person’s job,” town CAO Mark Fercho said. “It’s the job of everyone at the municipality to ensure (environmental) values are met.”
The contract expired Dec. 31, 2018 and the municipality had been picking up the tab for the one-person department run by former environmental stewardship coordinator Janet Cooper, who left the employ of the municipality last month.
Cooper could not be reached for comment. Fercho said in an email he would not comment on a personnel matter.
At Tuesday’s meeting councillors contemplated but rejected adding $58,500 to the town’s 2019 operating budget to create a unionized position to be described as an environmental services technician or in some other language that strips it of any management connotation.
Councillors and town staff members discussed and debated the implications of funding their own environmental program while appearing at times to be taking pains to avoid referring to Cooper directly, with finance director Natasha Malenchak coming closest by starting to say “she” before correcting herself mid-word to “that position.”
Coun. Rico Damota expressed some umberance at Parks having discontinued funding the joint program after having proposed it in the first place.
“Parks holds so many strings when it comes to how we interact with the environment,” Coun. Paul Butler said, also objecting to their funding pull-out. “We don’t even manage the landfill.”
Coun. Bert Journault said his colleagues should give administrators the rest of the year to clearly outline what they would do with the position if re-created. He said the environmental program’s track record was “not that satisfactory.
“In the future, I don’t see much of a program that’s improving the environment (so) I say cancel it for this year,” he said. “I hear they help with this and they help with that, and that’s not good enough for me. I’m not convinced hiring someone with an environmental mandate is the way to go.”
Council rejected adding the funding to the budget 6-1 with Coun. Jenna McGrath voting in favour of keeping the program.
Councillors approved the town’s approximately $22-million 2019 operating budget, with some additions contemplated in recent weeks, including $15,000 for Habitat for the Arts, about half of what they were asking for, $5,700 for the municipal library for indexed increases and $25,000 to make a finance department staffer full-time.
They’ll spend the coming weeks debating this year’s tax rates.
-with files from Fuchsia Dragon
