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Ideas from town hall meeting will help planning
SPN Staff
for South Peace News
The town hall meeting held in High Prairie in July 2009 is still a topic with organizers.
The town hall meeting saw more than 125 people attend the Gordon Buchanan Recreation Centre to talk about the state of their community, and possible ideas for the future. The over 100 thoughts people raised at the meeting are being assembled into what is hoped to be an easily understood form.
“Once we started looking at the ideas, we saw that it was quite a big package of so many ideas, we really didn’t know where to start,” says town hall committee member Jeff Burgar.
The meeting was co-sponsored by Community Futures of Lesser Slave Lake, the Town of High Prairie, and the High Prairie and Area Chamber of Commerce. Community Spirit of Alberta facilitated the meeting.
“When we first planned the town hall meeting, we sort of had an understanding of some of the so-called “pillars” of a community. Even so, we weren’t sure if we were on the right track using the pillars we had in mind,” says Burgar. “There pillars are pretty well the foundations of every community, what the community is based on. As it turns out, the pillars we had in mind turn out to be very close to what our own Province of Alberta has in mind for what they call Municipal Sustainability Plans, or MSPs.
“Basically, the pillars we are working with, what we call our community foundations, are quality of education, health services, recreation, economic opportunity, and community safety. Now, our job is to put the town hall ideas into those slots, and then move forward from there,” adds Burgar.
He adds the town hall meeting has already showed its worth with a $100,000 grant from the province for a major planning project, which is underway.
The Town of High Prairie has sent invitations to a list of consultants. When a consultant is selected, work will begin on identifying current and future opportunities in the Seal Lake oilfields, opportunities in bio-fuels and forestry, and what the education and training requirements will be in this area. The first phase of this work will be completed in the next several months.
Now, the Town of High Prairie has to build its own MSP. To help with that, council is holding another open house March 3.
“As far as our committee is concerned, hopefully we can find a way to join our ideas with the ideas that will come out of the next open house,” Burgar says.
The meeting March 3 is to help High Prairie town council put together the first version of its new Municipal Sustainability Plan.
“The MSP is required by the province and must be completed by March 31,” says Burgar.
“We are expecting the open house, on March 3, to focus on the future, what we want to see in High Prairie five, 10 and 20 years or more down the road. We will present ideas from the first town hall meeting, but they will be broad brush strokes. We encourage the public to come out again. The process is continuing,” he says.
“The whole idea is listening to what people want, so we can make plans how to get there.”
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