Sometimes it’s too little, too late

I was thinking about municipal politics recently and pondered for a moment about how young I was when I first became aware of municipal affairs. I know it was in the early 1950s and I would have been about 7 years old. During a particularly heavy snow year, the roads to town in the RM of Victoria were blocked for several weeks. My dad had a “school van” route and had to switch from a 1952 International truck to a horse drawn old-fashioned school van for several weeks. 

I am not sure if that wintery ordeal was the instigation for my dad to visit a neighbour to encourage him to run for reeve but I distinctly remember the condition of roads, especially in winter was a major problem. Dad, and some neighbours thought that Fred Harrison would make a good reeve and hoped that he could convince the RM of Victoria to have bigger and better equipment to grade the roads in summer and plow the roads in winter. It was my first example of seeing that the most important level of politics in Manitoba is municipal.

Fast forward by about 70 years and my memory bank is full of events where municipal affairs have affected our daily lives and livelihood.

As an adult, I have now lived in two RMs and the Town of Neepawa. I have attended countless council meetings as a taxpayer and newspaper editor. I also served as mayor of Neepawa from1998-2002 and from 2012 to 2014. I have seen municipal successes, struggles and a few disasters. In my first term as mayor of Neepawa, I was in the council chair when the Neepawa water treatment plant failed completely. That was about five days of stress, expense and finally, a solution.

The biggest current issue, dare I say crisis, in the coverage area for our three papers at Virden, Rivers and Neepawa is the evolving issue of water quality and supply at Virden. Virden’s water supplies are running low and an emergency well drilling project is underway to try to avoid a full scale water shortage crisis. Back in the day, the Virden council received well-intended advice that a new well would supply lots of water and do away with the arsenic level issue. That said, the arsenic level was never very high, but it was above legislated limits and as everyone would assume, having any arsenic in drinking water isn’t a good feeling.

I don’t think any council or officials can be blamed for the current crisis, but it has happened and is being addressed and to that, I say good on Virden Council.

There may have been an earlier solution and what has been suggested is that the RM of Wallace-Woodworth reportedly had better water and in good supply. I don’t know if that is so. Maybe Virden and Wallace-Woodworth  should have worked together on a regional system.

My personal opinion is that the biggest problem we have in rural Manitoba is a lack of cooperation between municipal entities. Before anyone gets too upset with that statement, please note I said it’s my personal opinion, but it is an opinion based on many years of municipal experience and observation.

Back around 2010 or so, the NDP Greg Selinger government decided to “enforce” amalgamation. It didn’t go all that well, as there was severe distrust between municipalities and government and also between municipalities. For over a 100 years towns and RMs had been competing to stay alive, to achieve levels of service and at the same time, watch populations dwindle as farms got larger, many RMs and towns shrank. Forced amalgamation was not popular. That said, several amalgamations took place across Manitoba and in our newspaper coverage area. 

Personally I think RMs and Towns should amalgamate. Long gone are the days when as one reeve said long ago, the government should just leave us alone as all we need to worry about is plowing the roads in winter and grading the roads in the summer.

Towns, villages and RMs all have to deal with much more than roads. There are challenges with water supply and distribution, sewage treatment and disposal, garbage and recycling, health care facilities and much more.

I am told there are over 20 CAO vacancies in Manitoba. Maybe we have to pay CAOs more money. Municipal politics has become too complicated, expensive and risky to stick with what I would call the more casual approach of the past.

It’s rare that any major municipal project comes in under a half million dollars nowadays. The Virden water repair will be that high and it  costs over $100,000 to simply pave a block of street let alone install or replace water and sewer pipes.

We owe all our councillors and staff a vote of thanks but that doesn’t include sticking with outdated practices.