Material recovery facility, municipal election costs on council agenda
By Lethbridge Herald on March 10, 2025.
By Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald
City council will be asked today to direct City Manager Lloyd Brierley to pay off debt associated with the material recovery facility from the Waste and Environment department’s surplus.
Three debentures total $7,588,244.
Mandi Parker, the department’s general manager, is making the request because, effective April, 1 under Extended Producer Responsibility rules, the financial and physical burden of collecting, sorting and recycling shifts from Alberta taxpayers to producers.
The City of Lethbridge has been contracted by Circular Materials – the only Producer Responsibility Organization for PPP (printed and packaged products) in the province – which will be delivering recycling programs for registered communities in Alberta.
According to a presentation being made by Parker to council, “to meet the cost scenarios moving forward, the debt on the material recovery facility needs to be removed from the equation.”
The total amount of the loan balances to be paid by March 31 is $7,588,244. Paying it will result in interest savings of $1,456,856 .
While the City will, as of April 1, act as the local contractor, the services it provides will be up for competition in the future.
PPP includes such materials as newspapers and magazines, printed paper and cardboard, plastics and metal and glass.
The City opted into the program last December.
Council today will also address two official business motions. One will be jointly presented by Mayor Blaine Hyggen and councillors Rajko Dodic and Jenn Schmidt-Rempel, and the other by Dodic alone.
The joint OBM – called Funding Service Tie-in for Student Learning Opportunities- Southland Trailer Corp. Project – calls on council to fund up to $30,000 from council contingencies to provide the infrastructure tie-in needed for a project involving Southland Trailers and the Lethbridge School Division.
Southland wants to contribute $400,000 to the LSD for “the purposes of supporting student learning in the successful development of the Winston Churchill High School welding program.”
That money would be utilized to retrofit a structure at WCHS to create a fully funding welding shop. For the project to be completed, a tie-in is needed to the City’s water and sewer system, which would cost about $28,000.
Dodic’s solo motion regards the 2025 municipal elections in October and asks council to write a letter to appropriate provincial authorities requesting that the City of Lethbridge be given the option to choose whether to count ballots manually or by automatic tabulation.
The letter would state that. if the City’s request is denied. then any increased costs borne by the City will be covered by the province.
Electronic counting of ballots was prohibited in upcoming elections by the Government of Alberta last year. Council has heard this will not only increase the amount of time needed to count ballots in October and delay results from being released, but will also cost the city about $300,000 more to run the municipal election.
The motion also states that new rules calling for votes to be counted on-site after stations close will “present numerous tactical difficulties in terms of counting votes in separate locations without lack of central co-ordination” so the province is being asked to allow the City to transfer ballot boxes back to a secure location inside City Hall for counting.
Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver addressed the ballot-counting issue in a Jan. 20 letter to Hyggen, stating “Municipal Affairs has a mandate from the Premier to strengthen public trust in local elections. Building trust in election processes and reassuring Albertans that our system is safe from mistakes is part of that mandate. Having returning officers hand count and verify paper ballots can help achieve that goal.
“It is important for all Albertans to feel they can trust the methods and results of local elections. A poll conducted by Leger in May 2024 found that 36 per cent of Albertans support prohibiting electronic tabulators. That means roughly one in three Albertans may not trust election results produced by a tabulator. The Government of Alberta believes the time and cost to manually count ballots is outweighed by the increased confidence in election results.”
McIver added “eliminating the use of tabulators aligns local authority elections with federal election standards as administered by Elections Canada, which also do not use tabulators for casting or counting ballots in federal elections.”
Council today will also be asked by Darrell Mathews, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, to approve the expenditure of $345,000 from the provincial government for the years 2025-27 to support costs associated with collection and disposal of drug-related debris. A new three-year agreement being offered to the City by the province would provide $115,000 annually.
24-23
I suspect the 36% of Albertan that support prohibiting electronic counting of ballots is a deliberate lie by the UCP. It might be 36% of those that voted and even the way the vote was held could be suspect. I don’t recall seeing how/when this vote was held. I’m unaware of any verified cases of voter errors from the electronic ballot count so this switch to hand count is not only costly to taxpayers but unnecessary.