With the first full year as mayor under his belt, Lacombe's Mayor Grant Creasey says he feels like a lot was accomplished, and he’s confident and enthusiastic about what the future holds.

Following an election that saw new faces both on council and in the mayor’s seat, Creasey says although they don’t always see eye-to-eye on every issue, he’s happy that they all share the common goal of bettering our community.

“A pleasant realization for me was to know that everybody is more or less progressing in the same positive direction. Not to say we don’t have our differences of opinions or disagreements from both staff and council, but I think that’s a healthy thing and everybody still comes out of it relatively unscathed and is respectful of each other’s opinions. It really has been a great year I think.”

An important part of running a government is communicating with the public, something the city has taken an active role in improving this role.

They activated a new system that Creasey says will ensure there is a paper trail behind every comment or request, to ensure they can be dealt with properly from start to finish.

Between that and the online streaming of council meetings, he says the public is now more involved than ever.

“The online streaming is just one more facet of the communication tool that is all designed to put that information forward and let people know that we are open with the information. Here it is live, here it is happening, you can go back and refer to it in your notes if you so choose.”

Creasey says the communication system they put into place this year is probably the most effective way to communicate with council and administration, as opposed to social media or word of mouth.

“It’s nice to have folks that let me know about certain instances where things are grossly unfair and what not, and you try to do your best to address them. To be engaged in that way (social media) it’s not as productive, and frankly, it’s not realistic because there is not enough time in the day.”

Residents can submit their questions by written letter, email, or through an online forum at lacombe.ca/inquiries.

His administration was also honoured with several awards and distinctions this year, including the Lacombe Mainstreet Project picking up the Envision Award and the American Public Works Associations Alberta Chapter 2018

Project of the year award in the $5 to $10 million category, and the Choosewell Healthy Community award, given to communities that promote healthy eating and active living.  

“I think that’s more of a reflection on our staff perhaps even more than the elected portion of the team…certainly nice to see them being recognized for the positive work they’ve done. From our Envision award, which was the first of its kind I believe in Western Canada…the Sustainability and Collaboration award is an important one to be recognized as leaders in our regional wastewater system…the senior management of Lacombe and Blackfalds working with Red Deer, that was a great one…and of course with the major announcement with Canada's personal finance magazine called MoneySense, to be at the top of the list for western Canada and number 5 in all of Canada, as the most livable place, was pretty exciting.”

When it came time to make the 2019 capital and operating budgets for Lacombe, once again council managed to keep the tax increases in line with the Alberta Consumer Price Index at 2.8%.

A tax increase of any kind is usually a point of contention for pretty much every taxpayer, but as Creasey explains, a tax decrease is a rare thing and generally indicates an area that is in extreme distress.

“I think some people would always prefer it to be less, all I can say is that we try to keep it reasonable and meet the needs of our citizens. I’d like to think that we have relatively high standards of services in Lacombe, and even with these modest increase of 2.8%, we were able to maintain all of them, and enhance them in a couple others areas. There’s a variety of reasons that go into that overall picture but one of them I think is administrations and councils desire to look at other revenue sources which we’ve been successful at a few different fronts…we are looking after the administration end of the north lake for the Wastewater (Services Commission).”

That 2019 budget also includes a bunch of construction projects in nearly all corners of the city, some of which are already under weigh.

“Our east area development, we’ve got some building going on there right now. And if negotiations prove successful hopefully we’ll have some other announcements there, but that’s ongoing. On the south end we have the Alberta Health Services building going there, and the associated commercial development that surrounds that entire area…the major facelift at Popow & Sons was certainly a positive improvement for that area. Hanna Seeds is in the process of improving their entire development, yard and offices there…some of the other great buildings that we got downtown, the whole revelation that goes hand-in-hand with the main street downtown program. Lots of very positive improvements…I’m looking forward to 2019 as a great year.”