Recreation bylaw will have to wait until New Year

Nikki Jamieson
Vauxhall Advance
njamieson@tabertimes.com

Vauxhall will have to wait until January to get a new and improved Recreation bylaw.

Vauxhall town council did the first and second reading of the bylaw 896-15, Vauxhall and District Recreation Bylaw, during the Nov. 2 council meeting.

This bylaw, upon final reading, would immediate repeal and replace bylaw 842-09, the current Recreation bylaw, which was passed by council in August 2009.

The proposed bylaw has the following changes:

* Addition of ‘tourism’ to the first paragraph, to read “… Council may determine for the encouragement, development and supervision of recreation programs and tourism.” It was added to the board’s mandate, since if Vauxhall joins the Joint Economic Tourism project, they would need someone to implement it, and their tourism theme is sports.

* Board appointments include a council member on the Joint Economic Development committee and two members of the Municipal District of Taber council. Before, there was no member of council on the JEDC and only one member of the M.D. council.

* Original board appointments are for a rotating term consistent with Vauxhall elections. Before, they were on a three-year rotation.

The first reading passed without any question. During the second reading of the bylaw, coun. Martin Kondor raised the question of what section 4.4 meant – the board shall serve without remuneration.

“Basically, it was decided that, when this bylaw was originally created, that anyone who serves on the rec board, it is not a paid position. So that means council as well as any committee members,” said Margaret Plumtree, mayor of Vauxhall. “Whereas subdivision, they do pay everyone.”

“Virtually every other committee of councillors is going to be paid there – a massive $20 an hour participation. But this one, councillors will be serving with no compensation,” said Kondor. “I don’t really care, I’m just pointing out that it might be a shock to councillors from either the town or the M.D, if they were to submit this on their list of activities, thinking it would be covered, when according to this, it will not be. I’m good with it, it’s just a departure from the norm.”

Since the recreation committee meets only four times a year, and there are so many non-councillors on the board, it would be too hard to compensate everyone.

Council decided to amend the section, to read “The Board shall serve without numeration from the town of Vauxhall”. They also further amended the philosophy.

A third and final reading had been scheduled, which would have caused the bylaw to come into effect, but since Coun. Kimberley Cawley was absent from the meeting, and some of the current members of the board were not sure about adding tourism to their purview, council decided to wait for further discussion, before the final reading proceeded.

“Basically, if they (the recreation board) don’t jump on board with this, it’s probably not going to happen,” said Plumtree. “Because, who else are we going to get to volunteer more?”

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