Column: From the Desk of the Mayor & Council

By Mayor Lloyd Bertschi

The Province of Alberta supports local communities through a number of grants, one of which is the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) – Capital Funding.

In 2012, Morinville will receive $1,477,615 in MSI Capital funding and over the past three years has received over $4.1 million in funding from this program. The program supports qualifying projects that result in the purchase, construction, development, betterment, rehabilitation or non-routine maintenance of infrastructure that enhances long-term municipal sustainability.

Some of the projects that your Council has completed over the past 3 years include:

• Purchase of the new Aerial Fire Truck – $1,000,000 in MSI funding utilized

• Purchase of additional mowers for lawn maintenance – $60,000 in MSI funding utilized

• Construction related to Community Cultural Centre – $100,000 in MSI funding utilized

• Purchase of a new snow plow – $165,000 in MSI funding utilized

• 107 Street Development – $1,260,000 in MSI funding utilized

• St. Germain Place redevelopment – $1,340,000 in MSI funding utilized

• Burial of Power Lines – $130,000 in MSI funding utilized

Clearly, without this funding, these projects would not be able to be completed without an increase in taxes. Based on $1,400,000 in funding each year, taxes would need to be increased by an average of $380 per property.

On behalf of Council and all residents of Morinville, we thank and appreciate the Alberta Government’s continued support for local communities through the MSI Capital grant.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

1 Comment

  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you…

    This column is the first time in my 15 years as a home-owner in beautiful downtown Morinville that either an elected official or a senior member of the Town’s Administration has seen fit to communicate financial information in such a simple manner.

    I truly hope that this column, “From the Desk of the Mayor and Council”, is not a “one-off”, never to be repeated. I belieeve we really do need this kind of approach to further the understanding of how, where and why our money is being spent.

    I do, however have one suggestion: for each of the aforementioned projects, please include the TOTAL cost of each project. That way we might be able to gauge just how much of an impact these grant monies really do have.

    Well done Mr. Mayor!!

Comments are closed.