The Beiseker Airport

Back in the early 1980s, Beiseker Mayor John Richter, deputy mayor Dan Benoit and myself decided to approach the provincial government and ask them to build a airport near our village as part of the provincial municipal airport project initiated by Premier Peter Lougheed. 

The province asked us to create a association of municipalities in our area, which could support a small airport. An airport association was created involving the villages of Acme, Beiseker, and Irricana plus the Municipal District of Rocky View (now, Rocky View County). After much planning and negotiation, a site was chosen for the new airport and the Association became the Airport Commission.

Under the leadership of the provincial Transportation  Department, the new airport was constructed and an AVPA was created for it. The Airport Vicinity Protection Area was designed to make sure that all buildings and all developments around the airport would not interfere with the airport's operation nor would the airport interfere with that development.  Any development in the AVPA and not following its guidelines had no recourse in the case of a disagreement.

The new airport became home to recreational flyers, who built small hangars for their airplanes and enjoyed the camaraderie of the small airport group. It was decided that the Village of Beiseker would provide the day to day maintenance for the airport, and each of the other members of would contribute a small amount supporting that operation.

Each village and the M.D. gave the airport commission a very small amount of money to accomplish this. Those funds, and the money collected from the leaseholders, contributed to the maintenance and operation of the airport.  The airport was still located with the Municipal District, and therefore all development permits and tax collection was to be done by them.  In those early days, the Village's contribution to maintenance and operation costs at the airport equal to about one half of 1% of Beiseker's yearly budget.

After several years, disagreements and legal challenges between the Association, the Municipal District, and one of the tenants at the airport forced the other three members of the Association to withdraw from the commission. This left Beiseker on its own to maintain and operate the airport.

The airport sputtered along for many years seeing little development and almost no maintenance. The village made little investment into the airport, but volunteers stepped up to keep the airport operational.  Eventually, the difficult tenant left the airport and operations there began to improve.

The provincial government eventually asked the village of Beiseker if they would be interested in taking over ownership of the airport. Village council indicated they would not be willing to take over the airport, until the neglected runway had been resurfaced. The province agreed and did resurface the runway and pave the main taxiways.  Rocky View County also agreed to provide a portion of the property tax collected at the airport back to the village for operations and maintenance. 

The future of this important Beiseker facility was looking quite positive!

An airport is an important facility to any community it serves.  Just like an arena, a swimming pool or a library, an airport adds to the fabric of any municipality lucky enough to have one!  When Beiseker was approved to get an airport, many municipalities were very jealous!  Ours was one of the last constructed under the program.  Beiseker has continued operating and maintaining the airport which does bring in some commerce into the village at very little cost.  In fact the cost to taxpayers to operate the airport has been almost nil for many years. 

At present we have a skydiving/parachute facility, a pilot training school, numerous recreational aviation hangars and a café at our airport.  Much of the normal maintenance is still done by volunteers, saving the village more money.

Presently, the Village and the hangar owners are in discussion now to officially subdivide the airport lot into separate hangar lots then explore the possibility of selling some of the lots to hangar owners.  The runways, taxiways and other areas will  still be owned and operated by the Village of Beiseker.  I support this move, and I hope an agreement will be reached in the near future. Stay tuned!

This Remembrance Day

First, my humble apologies to the students of Beiseker Community School.  I missed their Remembrance Day Poster judging, this morning.  I was asked to help judge the Remembrance Day posters while at Stage East this past weekend - but I didn't have my agenda with me to note it.  I didn't remember it until after the time had passed.  Again, my apologies.

Remembrance Day is important to me. It's a time when we can appreciate what the sacrifices of the many thousands of Canadian soldiers actually accomplished, here at home.  A couple of minutes of silence seems so little compared to what those soldiers gave us.  It is also a chance for us to thank the veterans for their similar gift to us.  Freedom is never free!

I will be attending the Remembrance Day Ceremonies at the Acme Community Centre tomorrow starting at 10:30 a.m.  I am urging you to join me.  The ceremony is organized by the Royal Canadian Legion branch there and it is very moving.

This year after the ceremony, upon my return to Beiseker, I am going to stop at our memorial in front of the Beiseker Community Centre and place my poppy there.  Why don't you do the same?

A Fantastic Country Fair!

The weather turned out perfect for Beiseker's 96th edition of its Lions Club Country Fair!  The fun started with a fantastic morning breakfast at the community centre and continued all day. 

I thought the parade was a little sparse of decorations but those who participated were definitely enthusiastic! 

I was disappointed that I didn't see Rocky View Fire Services in the parade, but our Beiseker Fire Department was joined by the folks of the Kneehill Fire Department from Acme, in their firetruck.  I met a few of them at breakfast and welcomed them to Beiseker.

The Color Me Beiseker Run was FANTASTIC, especially for the young people there.  Our MLA (and former Beiseker Mayor) the Honourable Bruce Rowe and his wife Carol actually ran in the colour run!  Everyone was having fun.  It was great to see.

I didn't see much of the 4H Show & Sale but I understand it was a huge success.  Some of the other scheduled events didn't have as large a turn-out as I expected, but those who were there had a great day!  Chris Heighton's tenth annual Show & Shine on Main Street was awesome!  I think the early morning clouds and rain kept some car guys at home with their mechanical babies, but they missed a wonderful day.

Overall I thought this year's Beiseker Lions Country Fair was one of the best ever!  Thank you to everyone who made that day possible. You rock!

(Here's a request from me;  If anyone got a photo of myself and my little dog Duggie in the parade, I'd love to put it here and on my facebook page.)

No Help from the Province

We had an inter-municipal meeting in Acme the other evening.  We talked blizzards and snow removal for quite a while.

It appears that most communities in this area, including Beiseker, have spent between $8,000 and $20,000 moving snow so far, this winter!  This is a big hit on the budgets of small municipalities like ours. 

I've had our Village Administrator check out to see if we could apply for emergency or disaster funding from the province.  I realize that our expenditures for snow removal pale by comparison to the flood damage in many Alberta municipalities, last spring.  However, these expenses come at us totally unexpected, and have stretched our snow budgets to the breaking point.

But the answer from the province was a flat "no."

I see no choice for all the small municipalities to either cut other services or raise taxes (or maybe both) to accommodate these huge increases in snow removal budgets.

I believe that the province should be helping its municipalities cope with these "snow emergencies," as much as possible.  The premier's travel expenses and the bureaucrats' salaries show me that they have (or maybe had) the money!

Issue #3: The Beiseker Airport

I am very pleased to announce that the Village of Beiseker has purchased the Beiseker Airport, a facility valued at more than 1.5 million dollars, from the Provincial Government for the sum of $1.00! Beiseker council insisted on two conditions before taking over ths airport;

1. That the facility be brought up to standard by the province and;
2. That the airport never become a burden to ratepayers here in the village.

Both conditions have been met!

The airport has the POTENTIAL of bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars of business into the Beiseker area and the village in particular!

It is my intention to work with economic development groups and the Chambers of Commerce to explore these potentials. It is the opinion of most aviation experts that Beiseker's airport has huge economic potential for the region. I intend to help realize that potential!

It is also my intention to recreate the Beiseker Airport Commission to advise council on the airport's operation. Rocky View County has already agreed to take part in such a commission and is now turning over the collected tax dollars to the operation of the airport!

 I would also like to see the Town of Irricana and the Village of Acme also rejoin the commission!

Issue #1: Water! Water! Water!

Beiseker has many water problems.

 Our drinking water is supplied by the Kneehill Regional Water Services Commission from Drumheller. We buy water from the Town of Drumheller, then pipe it to Kirkpatrick where it is treated and distributed to Carbon, Acme, Linden, Irricana and us.

 The counties of Kneehill and Rocky View are also part of the system. The system was built about 6 years ago funded by the province, the federal government and the municipalities. Each level of government contributed about one-third of the full cost of the system. The municipalities are finding it hard to pay their portion!

Every attempt by the Commission to sell water has been blocked by the Town of Drumheller! That, coupled with water conservation programs have reduced the sale of water throughout the area.

Similar water projects around Alberta have been funded by the provincial government up to 90% of their cost! A water project east of us recently received funding of over 80% of the cost!

I will continue to fight to get Beiseker and the rest of the Kneehill Regional Water Services Commission an equitable funding arrangement, as they rightly deserve!