In a Lac La Biche and District Chamber of Commerce roundtable meeting last Thursday, county councillor John Nowak told members of the chamber to go against the mayor’s wishes and begin vocalizing their opinion on the potential loss of $17 million dollars in revenue from the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range.
“Rather than wait for direction from the mayor, I think that it’s imperative that the chamber contacts the ministers and say, ‘Hey what’s going on? We want some answers,’” said Nowak, a local businessman himself, who sits at the chamber meetings as the county council’s representative.
Referring to a meeting chamber members had with the mayor and three other councillors two weeks ago, where chamber members were advised to wait for instruction from the mayor before taking action on the Cold Lake boundary dispute, Nowak instead said the chamber needed to take aggressive action to prevent the loss of half of the county’s revenue.
“How do we get it out to the public and to the greater community that our community is in jeopardy? Wake up and lobby,” he said, adding the county council has done what it can from sending letters and meeting with municipal, provincial and federal officials.
“We as a chamber need to begin lobbying [Alberta Finance] minister [Lloyd] Snelgrove and minister [of infrastructure Ray] Danyluk every single day to remind them that this community needs to be viable whatever that might entail,” Nowak said.
After an impassioned discussion, a motion was put forward by attendee Alex Broadbent to have the chamber executive collaborate on developing a position against the possibility of taxation dollars being taken away from Lac La Biche county and re-distributed to Cold Lake.
There was also discussion on creating advertising spots highlighting the chamber’s position to run in larger centres.
Broadbent voiced concerns over the county council’s advise for the business community to stay mum on the air weapons range debate.
“We can’t just sit back and idle along regardless of what the county council says,” he said.
Similar sentiments were shared by OK Ford owner Brad Musat. “We’re not going to idly standby and let the government slide $17 million dollars, which actually over the next few years will be $34 million dollars a year because they’re expanding the bombing range.”
The chamber will be sending a request for members of their committee dealing with the air weapons range to attend an upcoming meeting the county council has with minister Danyluk.
Novak told chamber members the meeting would allow them to see the difficult political climate the municipal council has been working in.