Reimer feeling the encouragement to run again for mayor’s seat

By Justin Seward
The  2017 Municipal Election is now  a half a year away and mayor Ernie Reimer discussed his thoughts about the lead-up to election day during the break at the March 27 council meeting.
“It’s an exciting time to have an election to see what the town folks think of the present council and are they going to replace them,” said Reimer.
“For me I’m looking forward to it. I think we’ve done some good things for the town in the last three and a half years. I’m getting a lot of good feedback from folks living here and encouraging me to run again. That’s probably what I’ll do if the good lord willing, my health holds up and all the ducks are in a row.”
Reimer mentioned the first two years on council were a struggle because of issues that arose and it wasn’t always pleasurable, but as time has gone on and the right people were put in place working for the town, the election process has gotten easier.
Hoever, a change he would like to see for the election process is going from a counting ballot to an electronic ballot.
“It’s a quicker process with the electronic balloting, which we hopefully are going to entertain as we have money set aside for it,” said Reimer. “I’m hoping that’s the system we’re going to use. I’m assuming there reliable otherwise we wouldn’t use them.”
While under his current tenure as mayor, Reimer would like to see the sewer attenuation mitigation project be complete because there is ground water getting into the sanitary sewer system and by installing these larger tanks at the sewage lift stations, the ground water will fill them up and be released to Medicine Hat for treatment.
Meanwhile, council discussed advanced polling but sent it back for information and a decision will be made at a future council meeting.

PITCH-IN Week
PITCH-IN Week  is a commitment made by communities, individuals, families or community groups to participate in projects that help to improve the environment. The initiative is going into its 50th year and asked council to consider again supporting the free dumping at the landfill of yard and household waste. Council approved the decision and residents will be able to dump their household wastes ffree of charge from April 22-29.

NO SENIORS’ MASTERS GAMES FOR REDCLIFF
Alberta’s Minister of Culture Ricardo Miranda submitted a letter to town council to invite Redcliff to submit a bid to host the 2019 Alberta Senior Masters Games. However, council was quick to oppose the games because there is not enough facilities for 1,800 participants.
“Right now we’re not in the position to undertake a program like that,” said Reimer.
“We don’t even have a hotel. If we had a community close by, I mean  we’re connected to the city but they’re not involved.”
The requirement is if you’re a community of under 10,000 people you can submit a joint bid. Reimer added it isn’t out of the question to host the games  in the future because there is a chance of using the CFB Suffield facilities.

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