Q&A: Taxes and Services (and Community Schools)

I've received some questions over the last few days - most of them involved property taxes and what we get for our money in the Village.  Here's the questions and my answers.

Q:  How come the mill rate went down, but my taxes went up? 
A:  Beiseker's mill rate did actually drop by a small amount, however our overall assessment rose.  That means that some of the properties in the village actually went up in value from last year.

If your property was one of those, your taxes increased.  Most increases were small (less than $10/month), but a few of us took a bigger hit.  Tax payers can contest their assessment but they cannot contest their taxes.  Contact the Village Office (403-947-3774) for more information.

Q:  What do we get for our tax dollars, anyway?  
A: A small municipality must provide the same basic services as a large one.  Beiseker must provide its citizens with most of what Calgary provides. Your tax dollars pay for streets, roads, sidewalks, street lighting, road maintenance, water and sewer services, a fire hall, garbage pick-up and disposal, parks and recreation, public buildings, and parks along with a host of other things to keep this village running smoothly.

Q: We don't even have a fire department, do we?
A: On the contrary, our volunteer fire department is, in my opinion, one of the best in Canada!  That opinion is shared by others who know more about fire departments than I do! Our fire hall is open and manned twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for more than 340 days a year! I am very proud of our Beiseker Fire Department!

Q: You said Beiseker Community School was the only community school in Rocky View. What about Springbank Community High School?
A: To my knowledge, Beiseker and Springbank both were declared community schools.  That means they could go ahead with the process of becoming a community school.  But Beiseker was the only one to complete that process, so it became the only Rocky View School to be designated a Community School by the province.

Q: Is the village going to do anything about repairing or repaving the rest of the streets and sidewalks  in Beacon Heights?
A:  After we replaced the pavement on Chinook Crescent, the other streets in the subdivision showed their ages too.  We have a fair bit of grant money, but we have many improvement projects ready to go, too.

Council will have to crunch the numbers and see how much they can do with the funds we have and our priority list.  Those who are very concerned about the street of sidewalk in front of their home should.  If you're one of them, please, write a letter to council detailing your concerns.  It can be addressed to council via the Village of Beiseker (Box 349) or delivered directly to the Village Office.

Fabulous Weekend at the Beiseker Country Fair!

What an absolutely fabulous weekend in Beautiful Downtown Beiseker!  That has got to be one of the very best Beiseker Country Fair (formerly Sports Day) weekends I have attended in my forty-plus years living in this community!  What an amazing job done by a small army of volunteers!

One again the Beiseker Lions Club needs to step up and take a bow.  They are a relatively small club but they are able to accomplish giant things!  They had help from other clubs in the area, but the success of the Beiseker Country Fair 2015 is clearly theirs!  Lions, be proud!

Beiseker Car Show, photo via Facebook

The weather held off for the parade and car show along Main Street!  There was a mix-up in communication so the Mayor's car didn't arrive.  No worries, I had the pleasure of riding with Parade Marshalls Mary Litke and Norman Schmaltz.  Chris Heighton's Beiseker Car Show was awesome again this year with a huge turnout of cars and motorcycles from all over! 

Shelly Schneider and Harry Reding, co-chairpersons of the Beiseker School Centennial Reunion Committee with all of their volunteers, accomplished the impossible!  Beiseker's population more than doubled as hundreds of former Beiseker Community School students, parents, and staff flooded into town.  The huge tent set up in the Community Centre & Arena parking lot was a Godsend!  It became a focal point for the thousands of mini reunions which took place over the weekend. 

photo courtesy Elvis Chow, via Facebook

How many times did we hear:

• Oh my God, it is you! 
• I haven't seen you since we graduated!
• You didn't have grey hair last time I saw you.
• What ever happened to ..........?
• I've got to tell my (wife, mom, sister, brother, etc.) that I saw you!
• No, that wasn't me, that was my younger brother (or sister)!
• I was a real rotten kid school, wasn't I?
• Jeez, we were young back then!
• When did they change the school colors?
• You know, Mr. or Mrs. (fill in a teacher's name here) really hated me!

I know many of you were taking photos. I hope to see those shots come up on social media in the next few days.  Good memories of a great weekend.

After clean-up, all those hard working volunteers are going to collapse into a soft chair (if only for a few minutes) and be proud of the work they did to make this weekend such a memorable one!  Well done, all of you!  

I'll be mentioning more about the events and encounters of this past weekend in the coming days.  Stay tuned!

History of Education in Beiseker, Part III

I joined the staff of Beiseker School in the fall of 1969.  I had been teaching in the City of Calgary but I didn't like it.  I was greatly disillusioned.  I thought it was far too impersonal.  I was pretty much ready to quit teaching and do something else.  My move to Beiseker changed that.

Beiseker was a small school then, actually it had a population similar to today's; 383 students. It had one classroom for each grade.

I found the kids, their parents, and this community to be friendly and straight forward.  I worked in Beiseker School for 17 years, and I was saddened when I was transferred to Crossfield. 

The staff and students have done some amazing things over the years!  Here are just a few;

The Bi-Campus & Tri-Campus;  To offer a larger program of courses to high school students, Beiseker School paired up with Kathyrn School and offered high school courses in each school.  Later Beiseker and Kathyrn joined with Acme School to form a Tri-Campus, offering different high school courses and programs in all three buildings.  To my knowledge, this was the first and possibly the only Tri-Campus program to operate in Alberta.  What is even more amazing was that it also involved two school divisions (Rocky View and Golden Hills)!

The "E.O.F." Program;  The Elementary Opportunities Fund was set up by the provincial Department of Education and given to individual schools to offer different programs to their elementary students.  Beiseker School received such a grant.  Here the grant was used to give any student a short little boost in learning in one small area of either Math or Language Arts.  The Girls' Boot Room in the basement of the original school building was converted into a classroom and a teacher (Miss W. Abbott) was hired.  Our E.O.F. Room ran very successfully for three years until the government pulled the funding for the entire province-wide program.

The Sports Programs;  I think Beiseker had Rocky View's first (and perhaps only) cricket pitch!  Mr. S. Wallace was a champion Cricket bowler (pitcher) and played on the Canadian National Cricket Team.  While teaching in Beiseker, he taught cricket to his students! The Bi-Campus (and later just Beiseker School) has fielded many top sports teams over the last 50 years!   Many of those championship banners proudly hang in the Gym now.  Next time you're in there have a look at that impressive display!  Remember: Once a Beiseker Bandit, always a Beiseker Bandit!!

Industrial Education;  Beiseker School was the first school in this entire area to offer an Industrial Arts Program with a full shop!  The shop was constructed in a temporary prefab building immediately south of the original main building.  It offered welding, photography, graphics, woodworking, automotives, and metal working.  That shop was replaced by a more permanent structure more than 10 years ago.

The Community School Program; In the early 1980s, Beiseker School was one of over 100 schools from across Alberta to apply to become a Community School.  A Community School was one that worked much more closely with the community around it.  Programs and the curriculum were tailored to the needs of that community.  Instead of a school being open just 200 days a year, a Community School could be open more than 300 days a year!  Of course that costs money, so the provincial government set up a large fund to help offset those extra costs.   Beiseker was the only school in Rocky View to attain Community School status!  Unfortunately the provincial Community School project funding was terminated in the late 1980s but the Beiseker Community School moniker proudly remains.

These are just five programs which made Beiseker Community School just a bit more special.  Teachers, Administrators, and students, past and present have much to be proud of.  I hope you all get a chance to visit Beiseker Community School during the reunion set to begin on Friday, June 12 and continue over that weekend.  Check out those banners in the Gym, search for a familiar face or name on the grad photos in the hallway, leaf through the old yearbooks.  Be proud!

The History of Education in Beiseker, Part II

While the rural school districts were gearing up and flourishing around Beiseker, students who lived in the village had no school to attend.

Village students had to attend the Odessa School District school, located about 4 km. northeast of Beiseker.  In 1913 there were too many kids for Odessa to handle so a school district was set up in Beiseker. The first schoolroom was set up in part of F. A. Lount's farm machinery dealership warehouse.  A year later the schoolhouse was built.

That school provided the same rudimentary education as did the rural one-room schools.  In 1918, Odessa School District and Beiseker School District joined to form the Beiseker Consolidated School District #55 and the new Beiseker Consolidated School was constructed on a site now occupied by St. Mary's Catholic Church.  That district operated until 1950. 

In 1951, the new school building under the control of Calgary Rural School Division #41 was finished on its present site across Second Ave. from the Consolidated School.  The Consolidated School was demolished and construction of St. Mary's began in 1955.

The present building has served this community well ever since.  There have been many additions and renovations to the building starting with the Gymnasium, then the south east wing which has been added to at least twice.  Then came the East Wing beyond the Gym.  Meanwhile the basement of the original school building was renovated to serve as classrooms.

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In 1967, a huge community and school project was undertaken to create the Centennial Mall, in front of the school.  The project director was then-Principal William Hansell.

Six hundred bags of cement, a mountain  of sand and gravel, and plenty of muscle power went into building the Centennial Mall!  The Mall featured a circular raised flower garden, and park benches.  It also had a large Canadian Centennial Symbol embedded in concrete.

We were told that every effort would be taken to preserve the Centennial Mall during renovations, but I see no evidence of it today.

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Beiseker had a number of teacherages for staff members to live in while working here.  The first were actually teacherages brought in from the now-defunct rural school districts.

At least one was placed on the school grounds while three were placed along Fifth Ave., across from the fire hall.  The teacherage in the school yard was eventually sold, moved and renovated.  It is now a private residence on Ninth Street.

The second round of teacher homes were built in the late 1950s & early 1960s. Two were constructed on Fifth Street and two more were built on Seventh Street.  All have been sold by the school division to become private residences.

The History of Education in Beiseker

As you know, Beiseker Community School is celebrating 100 years of education in the village in a couple of weeks.  As a tribute to this milestone, I am doing a series of blogs on the history of education in this area.  This is the first.  I hope you enjoy looking back.

If you would like a more detailed history, go to the Beiseker Station Museum or the school itself.  Most of the information for my thumbnail history was taken from the Beiseker history book; Beiseker's Golden Heritage, published in 1977 and a few other books on Alberta's history.

Alberta became a province in 1905, and shortly thereafter settlers began pouring in to build new farming communities throughout the southern part of the new province.  In that first twenty years, Alberta's population grew and grew.  The Province started to urge the new communities to set up their own school districts, both in the new communities and in the rural areas.

Rural school districts were usually designed around a township or portions of one or more townships.  The school was built in the approximate center of the new school district on a corner of land a farmer donated or sold to the new district.  The position of the school was important.  It was supposed to be placed such that all the students could ride or walk to school easily, no more than three miles.  A barn was built on the school property to house the students' horses and a "teacherage" was constructed to house the teacher.

Some teachers lived in the basement of the school house itself;  that was more common in Northern Alberta.

School districts often got their names either from the farmer or colonization company who gave up the land, the first chairman of the new district, or the name of the area based on a geographical feature.

Around Beiseker we had many such districts.  Some of the names of the districts around here are; Greenfield, Paddy Springs, Beeman, Scotia, Brushy Lake, and Silbernagel, among others.  These tiny school districts paid their teachers a few hundred dollars a year to teach the formative grades in those little one room schools. Supplies were short, times were tough, but these little districts started what I consider one of the best educational systems in the world! 

Many famous Albertans got their start in such a school.

Congratulations 2015 Beiseker Grads!

I had the distinct honour of speaking at the Beiseker Community School Graduation Ceremonies, last Friday night.

Thirty seven graduates were given several tidbits of advice from a number of speakers, including me.  I understand that a number of this year's grads will be going on to further education either at a college, technical school, university, or in an apprenticeship program.  Some are planning to go directly into the job market.

I envy those youngsters, even though they are heading out into a world which looks at times like it's going backwards instead of advancing.  They have the hopes and aspirations of youth along with the strength and confidence that comes with twelve years of schooling. 

I hope some of them will either remain here in Beiseker, or return here in the future.  We need those new ideas and that dedication to keep our little village alive and vibrant.

Best wishes and congratulations to the Beiseker Class of 2015, and good luck to you all!

p.s.  I heard that the Grad Weekend went very well without any serious incidents.  Congratulations on that, too!

Ken Farwell Passes

I was greatly saddened by the news that Ken Farwell had passed away.  Ken grew up here in Beiseker.  My wife taught him at Beiseker Community School starting in Grade One.  The Farwells are neighbours so we'd see him often.  I taught him many times through his years at our school.

He helped re-start C.O.P.s (Citizens On Patrol) here in Beiseker but his latest Beiseker adventure was his joining Stage East!  He loved getting involved with that whacky group and making suggestions on the performance.  He worked on sound affects and music.  We had convinced him to act and he was ready to do it! 

Unfortunately, his health issues prevented his stage début and he had to bow out of Stage East.  We all missed him very much.

We missed his bright smile, and his positive outlook.   Ken will be missed by so many here and elsewhere.  My heartfelt condolences go to his family and friends.

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?

Happy Birthday, Vera!

My wife and I had the pleasure of joining Vera Schmaltz's family in wishing her a very Happy 80th Birthday this past weekend!  Saturday's Open House at our Community Centre was packed with well-wishers!  Later, just the family got together for supper.

Vera has been a mainstay of our community for quite a while, and shows no signs of slowing down!  Here's a few places you've seen Vera around Beiseker;

She has been a Village Councillor. 
She was affectionately known as "Mother Hen" when she served on our Beiseker Volunteer Fire Department. 
She has worked as a parent volunteer at our school. 
She worked at the Village Office, the banks and at the Medical Centre here in town. 
She is our faithful prompter at Stage East. 

Vera has held positions on our Emergency Management Committee and is very active within her church, just to mention a few!

And during all of that she raised four fantastic kids with her husband, the late Tony Schmaltz, here in Beiseker!  If there were ever to be a title of "Mrs. Village of Beiseker", Vera would be one of the first chosen to claim it!

Happy Birthday Vera, and many more!

Bassano Station and the old School Playground

photo courtesy of the Rocky View Weekly

The Bassano Station fiasco appears to be waning!  

It looks like the railway museum group which started the project is less than active at this point in time.  But other parties with a vested interest in completing the project are stepping up to the plate! 

If all goes well, the building will be moved onto its foundation within the next few weeks.  After that has happened, the building will be made more presentable, secure, and weatherproof until more funding is obtained.

When the plan was presented to me I thought back to our very own Beiseker CPR station, now our Village Office and Museum, and its history.  The Village was given the station by the CPR on the condition that we move it from the track right-of-way.  We built a foundation, turned the building around, placed it on the foundation and made it more presentable, secure and weatherproof until more funding could be found.  It sat on its new foundation, its windows boarded up and painted white, waiting for quite a while! 

The necessary money was found (partly through the efforts of the original theatre group called Stage East) and the building was restored to as you see it today.  I hope the Bassano Station will see a similar future.

The old School Playground will become village property in the next few days.  The village is making plans to have it dismantled and removed from the school yard. 

Initial examination shows that most of the structure is in excellent condition, but wood portions will have to be replaced.  The parts of the stucture will be taken down to our public works yard where it will be cleaned and repaired. 

Council is asking for suggestions on where this piece of equipment might be re-installed.  If you have any suggestions, make them to the Beiseker Village Office (403-947-3774) or here to me, through email or by using the Contact Form on the right side. 

We are looking for volunteers to help disassemble and relocate the structure.  If you can help us here, let Councillor Warren Wise know through the Village office.

Honoring Fred Walters

Last Monday night, I had the distinct pleasure of honouring a former village councillor and very active village volunteer. 

Fred Walters was a huge part of the goings-on here in Beiseker for the past twenty years.  Fred volunteered at Beiseker Recycling, and built it up to one of the biggest and most successful recycling projects in the province for a community of our size!  He was an active member of the Beiseker Lions' Club, and held a senior divisional post in that organization for a time. 

Fred and his wife Marion were very much a part of the Acme Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, and for years they both made sure our Remembrance Day Ceremonies in Acme ran smoothly and with much dignity.  He also served twelve years on Village Council, handling many different portfolios.

I always got a chuckle over Fred's participation in the Awards Ceremonies at Beiseker Community School.  He would have to change jackets to present different awards from the various organizations he was representing.  At some ceremonies, Fred would have to make as amny as three "wardrobe changes" during the evening!

Fred did not run for re-election last October.  He and Marion recently sold their home in Beiseker and moved into smaller accomodations in Calgary.  This past Monday, we honored Fred's contibutions to village government in a short ceremony at the beginning of our council meeting.

One small thing Beiseker Village Council initiated a few years ago was to present each councillor with a personalized copy of a famous photo, the original of which hangs in Council Chambers.  The photo was taken more than 60 years ago of the Beiseker CPR Station when it was still in operation.  That building is now houses the Beiseker Village Offices and the Beiseker Station Museum.  The photo was presented to Fred with an inscription honoring his service.

Keeping Beiseker Happy and Healthy

Beiseker is very lucky to have the support services it already has, for a community of our size.  But they can be better!

• Community Links:  This new facility in Lions' Centennial Park (across from the Community Centre) has made living here even better for many people!  Family support services, parenting programs, counselling services, and a multitude of other programs can be accessed through Community Links!  The building also houses our very active and attractive Library and Play School.
• Medical Centre:  Our Medical Building on Main Street at Third Ave. is home to a physician twice a week and a dentist once a week.  It is not operated by the Village but is supported by them.
• Education;  Beiseker Community School is now a K to 12 facility and will become one of the main attractive features for those considering moving to Beiseker in the future!
• Recreation;  Our village offers an amazing choice of recreational activities and facilities, from the village owned Beiseker Arena (operated by the Ag Society) to playgrounds and outdoor facilities such as the skateboard park and ball diamonds. 
• Youth Justice:  Young offenders in our area can be referred to the Alternate Measures Program through the Big Country Youth Justice Committee, founded here more than twenty years ago!  If they successfully complete the Alternate Measures Program, the young offender avoids having a police record.
• Fire Department;  Beiseker has a very active and effective volunteer fire department manned by very dedicated people.  Their job has been made easier with the recent purchase of a more modern fire truck! Operating in conjunction with our fire department is our first response medical team who are equipped and trained to provide assistance to those in our village injured or ill and waiting for the ambulance.

With your vote, I will continue my efforts to enhance these services.  Here are some of my goals;

• To investigate the possibility of having the Community Links program open more than two days per week.
• To help get the word out as to what the Community Links programs and facility can do for you.
• To communicate with the operating board of the Medical Building to make sure they are receiving all the assistance they need to operate this important facility.  I do firmly believe in the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - and I will recommend the village become involved only if invited!
• To keep reminding the provincial and federal governments that we need effective policing from our RCMP detachment here, with a full complement of officers at all times.
• To remain serving on the Big Country Youth Justice Committee and I will be active in recruiting new members to that committee.
• To continue supporting Rocky View Schools and their efforts to make Beiseker Community School an active part of our community.
• To ensure that the recreational facilities meet the need of our villagers and to keep them in tip top order.
• To do my utmost to create mutual aid agreements with all surrounding jurisdictions in regards to emergency services.  I believe this is imperative to maintaining a strong volunteer fire department, providing emergency services to Beiseker and the surrounding area.
• To once again throw our voice into the debate to have a full hospital built in Airdrie.

School Playground Replacement

photo by Raymond Wong, via Flickr

I very much enjoyed meeting the new administration for Beiseker Community School at a Council meeting, last month. They and our school trustee, Norma Lang came in to introduce themselves to Village Council.

One of the topics we discussed was the fate of the playground structures at Beiseker Community School. I was most distressed to hear that the north playground was slated to be demolished later this year.   Our school board has also decided that each school shall only have one playground structure on their school grounds!

The north playground at school is not that old, and when it is demolished it will be up to parents and communities to raise the funds to replace it.  Also, when that happens, I assume the other playground on the east side will be demolished and not replaced.

Students in Beiseker community school come from families in in the Beiseker,  Irricana, and Kathyrn area.  Geographically this is a large area but with a small population . Asking them to continually replace playgrounds is absurd.

A playground structure can cost over $100,000.   If the school division demolishes it after 20 years, that means the cost of of that playground was more than $5000 per year to the community!

I am not a safety expert, but I think the school division is becoming a little paranoid about safety on these playground structures!  The structures can't have become unsafe over the few years that they have been constructed, nor have the regulations changed that much as to their safety standards.

I believe the school division should readdress this issue!  Small communities like ours cannot afford to continually replace playground structures at the whim of the school division!

In Shock

I was shocked to hear of the passing of our own Raelene Schmaltz last week.  Raelene was killed in a tragic traffic accident on Highway 9 south of Irricana.  All of Beiseker is greiving her loss.

My wife and I met Raelene while we were teaching in Beiseker Community School back in the early 1970s.  She attended my Social Studies classes throughout her school years.  I was  impressed by her quiet but forceful presence.   I always knew that there was some very serious thinking going on behind those flashing dark eyes and I waited for her comments with great anticipation!

As in any small town, nobody really leaves, they just go a little farther away.  We heard of her world travels and her graduating at the top of her class to become a nurse.  We were all proud of her accomplishments.  I also recall her working with 4-H kids over the years.  In the past while, I would often see Raelene in town.  She'd always give me a smile and a cheerful greeting.  I will miss that.

Our sincere condolences go to Eileen & Clarence and their family.