Three of the Village of Cremona’s five councillors resigned in March of this year which resulted in a loss of quorum under the Municipal Government Act.
Mountain View County Reeve Angela Aalbers says staff from the province’s Municipal Affairs department made a presentation to County council earlier this month to provide information on the now initiated viability review process, how county council and administration could be included, and how Mountain View County residents and Cremona residents would participate in that input.
She urges the residents of Cremona to stay engaged during this process. Reeve Aalbers says “this is a large turning point for the Village of Cremona and it could go one of two ways and I would just really encourage those residents and the electors to participate in any opportunity they can to give feedback and understand the process and the outcomes.”
Reeve Aalbers highlights the fact that at this point in time, Mountain View County does not make any decisions. She says the viability review will run straight through from now until April of next year at which time Municipal Affairs will hope to bring a vote to the electors of Cremona. The electors would then decided whether or not they want to maintain their municipality under viability directives or whether or not they will choose to go through a dissolution process.
A number of things are part of the viability review, according to Reeve Aalbers. She says one of the very big components is an infrastructure audit on the Village and it will determine whether or not Cremona has an infrastructure deficit and, if it does, to what extent.
Reeve Aalbers adds, if the Village of Cremona electors determine that they would like to retain their municipal status then there would be very little impact on Mountain View County. In the case that the electors would want to go through the dissolution process, she says “then Mountain View County would be the receiving municipality and then we would then have to go through a governance review looking at how we would integrate policies, municipal development plans, land use bylaws and again how we would look at incorporating any infrastructure within the Village into the County, but we are a long way away from that and we are just looking forward to having some input into the review and for our residents of Mountain View County to also have input into that review.”
