[New] Letter To The Editor

Submitted

Dear Mayor, Council and Town Administration, I was in attendance for the Town Budget Forum that happened on November 8th, 2022. This meeting was dedicated to ask questions, raise concerns and interact with Town Council and Administration in regards to the Town of Vermilion Budg et. I must mention that Council was very inviting and genuinely wanted to hear community members input and concerns. They really do care. On the other hand, you would think that the new CAO (Chief Administration Officer) of Vermilion would be more involved with the meeting. I was there for just over an hour and he just stood there with his arms crossed, examining the room. Odd. If I were the CAO of the town, you bet my bottom I would be trying to make an effort to talk to every single town of Vermilion citizen that walked through those doors. Since there has been no answers from the Mayor or Council, I followed up to see if there was any progress and I was told that they are waiting to hear back from Administration. I thought the citizens of Vermilion should know what questions and concerns I brought to the table that evening that have gone unanswered.

You spent 1 million dollars a few years ago and now you’re BORROWING 2.4 million dollars at 8% interest on Broadband Fibre Optic. Why are we the only town in the area that signed up for this eastern company? Why are we forking out this kind of money when we have Rogers, Telus, Shaw, and MCSnet installing internet in other towns for FREE such as Vilna, Elk Point, Lloydminster, Mannville, Bonnyville, Wainwright, Marwayne, Vegreville and St.Paul. These companies have the money and customers to keep rates reasonable and not costing municipalities money to profit their businesses upfront. We CANNOT blame the new Council as only the Economical Developer, CAO, Finance Director and 1 returning Council member knew about the cost of this project. Even these 4 thought they could use MSI money and for those of you who don’t know what MSI money is, that is the local access fee paid to Vermilion which is charged on your power bill, which is supposed to go to road maintenance, new equipment, community groups, and infrastructure maintenance and not for internet that other companies would put in for free. So, now how is the town going to pay this loan down? It is going to be us as tax payers. Maybe it will come out of our road improvement tax or is it going to be our franchise fees that we pay every month on our power and gas bills, which takes away from other things this town needs.

In regards to the Broadband bylaw, it is stated on the Government of Alberta MDA that the timeline for passing a borrowing bylaw has to be followed in this order. I shouldn’t have to remind the council but it goes -advertising week 1 -advertising week 2 -start of 15 day petition period -second and third readings -valid bylaw 30 days after bylaw has been passed

How has the bylaw passed on October 18th when legally you can not do 2nd and 3rd reading until November 3rd. Do you realize this can be challenged in court?? To top it off, when I brought this situation up to the Mayor and a Council member, they directed me to the Director of Finance and he didn’t even want to listen to me. He got defensive, wrote down my name and number and said he would look into it and follow up with me. Just as expected, no followup 6 weeks later. You look silly not giving me the time of day and clearly not a man of his word. It’s not hard to follow up with a community member.

The town bought a zoom boom which is a machine that assists employees to hang flower pots and decor for $55,000. The machine is only used once a month if that. Was it necessary to purchase this when the town has always supported local businesses that have the equipment already and qualifications required to operate? Instead, you’ve wasted this money and now employees have to get certified on top of yearly inspections. Where did this money come from?

In regards to the garbage bins, the town might need to reconsider the size of garbage bin your supplying to us. As a family of 3, 90% of the time the lid to my garbage bin doesn’t close. Refusing service for something we overpay for in this town is a bit ridiculous. Also, why did you remove the large green bins that were scattered over town?

Public works closes at 4pm and its very inconvenient for citizens to drop off lawn clippings and other yard waste when the average person works till 5pm.

The town preaches to support local businesses. Why are you not following through with what is being preached for example:

⁃Stadium lighting for the ice surface. You could have used multiple local businesses but used Amazon instead.

⁃Board advertisements for the stadium and flower pot sponsorship signs. You used to support Decals and Signs, now you spend our tax money in a different city.

⁃The cedar mulch around town was purchased from out of town instead of locally. Why are you not spending our tax dollars locally and putting that money back into the community?

We all know about the flower pots in 2021. Kevin Lucas who was the Rec Director at the time and is now the CAO of the town had a grand idea to try and “save” money and purchased flower bulbs, flower equipment through Amazon and started the growing process in the zamboni room which had very poor growing conditions which led to the town having to purchase more flowers as the other ones died. My question to CAO is what happened to all the expensive equipment that was undoubtedly purchased with tax payers money and what are the plans with it?

The Town of Vermilion office expanded so everyone could work under one roof for town residents. We now have 2 workers at the Regional Centre and 1 at the old Public Works shop. We have an assistant CAO, assistant to Director of Finance and an assistant to the Director of Public Works Manager. We never used to have all of these employees before. How many of these people work from the office 5 days a week and how many work from home? How many Town Office employees

Joe Van Peteghen

actually live in Vermilion and surrounding area that support our businesses and pay taxes in this town? Why do we need all these positions when we’ve never had them previously? Why was the Economical Development Officer promoted to a Manager position and who’s paying the $17,000 salary increase?

The last couple of years since our new CAO, Director of Finance, we also have a new Director of Public Works, new Director of Parks and Rec, new HR person, and a new “used to be” Public Works foreman now titled as a Manager. So we now have 2 managers doing the same job in Public Works, 1 less person doing hands on work like Keith used to as a working foreman - that’s another thing, how many people actually knew that Keith retired as a Public Works foreman? The town didn’t even recognize him after 30 years of service properly like they have in the past for long serving employees, but that’s our new CAO and Finance people for Vermilion. They don’t seem to care about long serving workers as they are not even from Vermilion. That brings me into another topic, some of you may not know, in the last 2 years, there have been 3 people let go and 2 of them have been paid out because they had no grounds to let them go and there is one still ongoing for wrongful dismissal and we are still waiting for that out come which is going to court and is costing taxpayers money as well. Some people should be let go up top for making some decisions that don’t help the town of Vermilion taxpayers.

MAYOR AND COUNCIL YOU DO HOLD THE CARDS ON THAT and its funny looking back 2 or 3 years all these problems have happened plus more. Get a hold of the Mayor and Town Council and get some answers before things get worse in this lovely town and ask for some action to be taken on our top people that run this town.

Enough is enough. It’s time to take accountability and start cleaning house and putting our money back into our community.

Sincerely, Alex Pashulka

Truly we are broken-hearted to be in this place and this time to comment on the passing of Joe. As I look to friends and family here, we can see he was well-respected and well-loved. He was a warm and funny person and to say we will miss him is so insu cient to describe what our feelings are at this moment. Joe was born at home in Leoville Saskatchewan in 1951. He was 5th in a family of seven. The family moved around a bit eventually settling on a homestead near Hythe Alberta. Joe went to school in Hythe and found work in the area. He did many things: worked for proctor and gamble, operated equipment, drove a truck, and eventually started his own plumbing business which ran successfully for 20 years until he left Vermilion. Curious about ying he quali ed for his private pilot’s license at 19. Joe met Tami in 1976 and they were married in 1979. They moved to Clandonald so Joe could go to a pre-apprentice program in plumbing at Lakeland college and spent two years living at the farm of Lionel and Emily Van Peteghen in a very small trailer. Jade was born in 1978, Sarah was born in 1980 and the family moved to Vermilion where Casey arrived in 1984. When Joe was in his fties, he found work in Inuvik as he had always wanted to explore the north. This led him to volunteering for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith. This was a di cult business as the people in charge could not understand why a fully quali ed plumber would want to work in a volunteer capacity. had to y with a minimum of tools from small community to small community scrounging for parts around town and more likely the dump. In addition to this, Joe worked for the Rotary club in Mexico alongside Joe Schrijvers and his wife Jeannie. Joe loved the outdoors. If he could have lived outside year-round, that would have been his greatest dream. His motto for the family was, ‘Don’t let the weather get in the way of your life.’ Tami remembers being in a tent on the Peace River wrapped in 3 sleeping bags while Joe cheerfully cooked supper in the pouring rain and they have photos of the family ice shing at 20 below. Anything that could be done outside Joe would do berry picking, mushroom nding, bird watching, hiking, cross country skiing, downhill skiing, running, biking, ice shing, slow pitch, foraging (picking up roadkill), canoeing, working. He was proud of his Métis heritage and traditions. Once Joe made a skijoring out t out of a lawn chair and an old pair of cross-country skis and Luke, Erin and Lauren had fun being pulled around the yard by the dog and each other.

Some people might not know that Joe could not swim as an adult because there were not decent places to learn near Hythe. So, when he was in his late thirties, he started taking lessons and also earned his bronze medallion and bronze cross. Lake swimming was another challenge he took on and I remember him resting and hanging on to the canoe in Whitney Lake trying to calm himself enough to carry on. Success in the swimming led him to many triathlons, on his own and in the company of Jade and Sarah. Joe also raced in cross country events the longest being the Saskaloppet in La Ronge Saskatchewan, an event that included many kilometers in cold weather and an overnight sleep in a nearby snowbank. Two years ago, Joe took a beekeeping course in Edmonton and set up 2 hives near Jade’s farm. He was only stung twice and each time his face swelled up, but the honey was worth it. Joe was also a breastfeeding expert and grief counsellor. He told Tami when a funeral would happen, a lot of people would come and go, and toilets would over ow. He would be called in and since everyone was gone by then he would sit and have a cup of tea with the bereaved (usually the widow) and chat about the one who had passed on. Joe and Tami did not get to travel as much as they would have wished, however they did do a bike tour of Holland, saw Flanders Fields in Belgium, and spent time in London. In 2011, they spent a month in Greece with Joe driving not only around Greece but directly through Athens, a feat you wouldn’t wish on AJ Foyt. Tami and Joe were in Mexico many times, Cuba, San Francisco, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. And of course, camped most summers in Saskatchewan.

Joe loved any kind of music and spent time trying to learn the ukulele. He played with a group class in Edmonton a few times and was coached by Sarah. When Tami was 64, he played and sang ‘When I’m 64’ from the Beatles. When Sarah was 5, he attended Suzuki lessons with her, but the family says she outplayed him quite quickly. He loved listening to his children play and sing. Whether it was jazz, classical, or folk, Joe wanted to hear everything. He was a long time two-stepper and generally a great dancer and took ballroom dancing when it was o ered in the community and salsa lessons in Edmonton.

Joe was quite the cook; he began cooking when Tami went to university, and he would take meals to Casey at the coop. He became an adept wa e maker even learning how to fold egg whites into the batter. He loved pies and home-made jelly and there were quite few years when he would pick cranberries, and can it be saying that stinky feet smell was the best in the world. Breadmaking was another skill he acquired, and buns were his favourite accompanied by the above stinky feet jelly. One time he put the bread in the oven to rise, went downtown and forgot about it. He was quite disgusted with himself when this happened. He could make stew, spaghetti sauce, biscuits, mu ns, and learned how to make sausage. Joe could x anything and could MacGyver his way through anything. He was an expert mechanic and when stymied by some problems, he would go on YouTube and gure it out. He attempted to x the regulator on his oxygen with superglue and was very annoyed when this didn’t work, and he had to pay for a new one. When I read this to you, it seems such a poor description of someone who was friendly to everyone, who wanted to help as much as he could, who adored his children and grandchildren, who adored his wife, who accomplished so much in his life. Joe wanted to do so many things and for the most part he did them. He said to Tami once, ‘I’ve done everything I wanted to do in life.’ The family will miss him so much. It’s impossible to believe he’s gone

Thank You

The family would like to thank everyone for the food, owers, gift baskets, masses and donations to 2nd Chance Trail distributing funeral cards. We really appreciate all of the condolences, kindness and prayers.

Jade, Edward, Luke, Erin and Lauren McCormack

As 2022 comes to an end, we look back on our triumphs and troubles, our success and failures, our gains and our losses. This past year has been a tumultuous one.

It’s brought regime changes, famines, landscape altering storms and unforeseen fluctuations in the global economy. But it’s also brought us new champions to admire, advancements in science, medical miracles and, ultimately, hope for a future our children can thrive in.

Through it all, we’ve been proud to be your number one source for local news and to share the stories that shape our lives and our community. As we look towards the new year, it’s with the absolute certainty that we’ll continue to be there for you, delivering the stories that matter to us all.

May 2023 bring us achievements and victories that we can share with each other and with the world.

It’s again! As the countdown to the new year begins, it’s time to reflect on all the amazing events of the past 12 months and set some seriously exciting goals for the year ahead. The past year has been filled with challenges, but it’s also brought about some truly impressive moments of resilience, growth, and connection.

One thing that’s been top of mind for many of us this past year is the importance of taking care of ourselves and each other. The pandemic has reminded us to prioritize self-care and to support one another through tough times. As we ring in the new year, let’s vow to continue prioritizing our mental and physical health by setting aside time for self-care, seeking support when needed, and practicing gratitude. Setting goals or resolutions is another way to kick off the new year with a blast. These can be big or small, and they don’t have to be overly ambitious. It’s important to choose goals that are meaningful and achievable, and to be patient with ourselves as we work towards them. Whether it’s setting a goal to get more exercise, learn a new skill, or spend more time with loved ones, the new year is a great opportunity to make positive changes in our lives.

Another way to celebrate the new year is to spend time with loved ones. This can be in person or virtually, but either way it’s a great opportunity to connect and reflect on the past year together. Whether it’s hosting a small gathering or connecting with friends and family online, spending time with the people we care about is a surefire way to start the new year off with a bang.

As we look towards the future, let’s remember that change is constant and it’s okay to embrace it. The new year is a fresh start and an opportunity to set some seriously exciting intentions for the months ahead. Let’s make the most of it and bring on the good vibes! Here’s to a healthy and happy new year! new year