Deputy Mayor Mike Tobin of the Stephenville town council said last week he believes shared services through regional government will happen and Legge was asked her reaction.
It’s not that she’s against regional government as she said their current local service district is about as regional as it gets because it’s made up of eight communities in Bay St. George South.
However, she said there would be no advantages to them joining up with a municipality as the closest are Port aux Basques and St. George’s, which are both quite a distance away.
She recently attended a session on regional government consultations held in Corner Brook for the Western Region, where there were only three LSDs represented. The topic was exploring a potential model for a new regional government.
“The feeling I get is that some LSDs are not in favour of becoming regionalized because they fear a higher cost to become part of a region,” Legge said.
Meanwhile, she said just recently a staff member discovered a document at their office entitled Municipal Regionalization Task Force, which was dated Feb. 26, 1997.
She 20 years later and nothing has changed between that document and where they are today, other than the population dropping from 1,800 at that time to about 1,200 today in their area.
Legge said the services they provide include: garbage collection, fire services and water and they make enough money from fees to pay for the services.
“We’re happy in our region right now,” she said.
It’s a little different story for Kim Kendall, chairperson of the Piccadilly Head LSD, who said regionalization is a touchy subject.
She believes about 50 per cent of their residents want the current LSD to remain as it is and about 50 per cent feel it would be great to have community services, such as a reliable water system and fire protection.
Kendall said to access more service they would have to share service with the Town of Lourdes, which she would have no problem with.
“Every year we end up for a period with no water and it’s a sore subject as what we have now is basically what I call a Band-Aid system,” she said.
Meanwhile Marilyn Rowe, chairperson of the Sheaves Cove LSD, said their group is not interested in a regional government or shared service and are happy just the way they are.
She was surprised to hear consultations on regionalization had been conducted and wondered how they could be over when for Local Services Districts they have yet to begin.
Rowe said their group wasn’t notified of any consultations so to her the process is already tainted.
“Will the public consultations be the same?” she asked.
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