A dispute goes on between the City of North Battleford and RM of North Battleford over fire services.
The city and RM had been in a five-year agreement for fire and rescue services for residential and commercial properties.
But that expired Dec. 31, and the city has since declared talks to be at an impasse.
“The City of North Battleford was unable to negotiate an agreement with the RM of North Battleford No. 437, for the provision of full-service fire and rescue services within the RM,” stated a Jan. 15 city news release.
Their release stated the city also offered to provide service to the RM until the end of February on an on-call basis, to either allow additional time for discussions or to provide alternative firefighting arrangements for the RM.
The release hinted the city could end up pulling service entirely.
“The City of North Battleford respects the decision of the RM to choose alternative firefighting options, but as the current provider of service in the municipality, the City wants to ensure that all RM residents and commercial property owners are aware of the potential disruption in service by the end of February and the implications to their property insurance.”
For their part the RM sent out their own release Jan. 17 stating they find it “unfortunate that the City of North Battleford feels that negotiations have come to an impasse concerning the firefighting services agreement. This council believed that these negotiations were ongoing and that the channels of communication were still open for discussion.”
The RM stated a letter had been sent to Mayor Bater and council, outlining the RM’s concerns with the city’s request for an increase in funding equaling $220,000 per year for five years with potential increases throughout.
“This would represent a 426% increase from what the R.M. paid in 2013 to what the City is asking in 2019,” the RM news release stated.
“The RM cannot justify paying this increase when the previous agreement more than compensated the City for the costs incurred providing emergency services. Over the last five-year agreement the R.M. paid $775,000.00 with actual costs totaling approximately $200,000.00 (2018 cost data was not yet received) leaving a surplus of close to $600,000.00.”
The RM indicated they were “exploring all options” and said they requested a six-month extension for the city to continue to provide emergency services.
“The concern is the wellbeing of the ratepayers and the people passing through the city and RM to make sure emergencies are responded to in a professional and timely manner, after all, ratepayers should always be any municipalities’ first and major concern.”
