county taxes?

[coppertop]

Geez, can't spell today, I meant to say HE was RETIRED, not me, I never did drive a grader !!

[cowman]

Well I think the county is fairly progressive, despite a lot of goof ups, but I guess they got caught by some rising costs? They budgetted for one number...and got another! It was a pretty tough year out on the roads? The frost went out so darned fast in the spring they were behind the eightball right from the start?
Not only that but they are still trying to fix some problems created by screwups over the last several years?
I do believe they are starting to get it right, though!
For one thing they've pretty well got all the gravel out of the ditches from their three years of putting it there...when some brightlight decided you could gravel the roads in December! And they finally started listening to the old gradermen about cutting the shoulders! Why after five years of incompetent management...the operations management is actually learning that they don't know everything! Who knows...maybe there is hope for the the planning management...

[coppertop]

This county went on a five year paving spree to the detriment of the gravel roads. There was a lot less shoulderpulling, etc. The past two years with a different council have seen them trying to do damage control and get the local gravel roads back into decent shape. With the increased traffic in the resource industry the roads are really getting put to the test.

Every project came in higher than expected in 2006, so thankfully the council had put a considerable amount in contingency to deal with the cost over runs. One thing that we used to do was have a night crew on during the winter, it cost more but during storms the plow trucks would get the roads open during the night, then the graders would go out first thing in the morning and wing them out etc. Since that was discontinued there have been numerous times that the school busses haven't been able to travel due to drifted in roads.

[cowman]

Heres an interesting sidenote:
Red Deer County privatized for a couple of reasons: One the workers decided to unionize and due to ideology, many councillors wouldn't deal with that? The other reason was the CAO had ripped off the county for $3.5 million and it was very apparent that nobody was minding the store...so a diversion was needed so ratepayers wouldn't be asking too many embarassing questions!
So out went the old and in came the new! I doubt more than 3 or 4 employees survived the "revolution" to this day!
One who did was a very competent lady in planning. She asked for a buyout but was refused...because basically she was the only one who knew anything! The county brought in a new manager, despite the fact she had been the head planner! Obviously she was not a happy camper and she certainly did not agree with the new outsider! She is a highly respected lady from an old pioneer farm family within the county.
Long story short...she finally got the boot in 2006! Now without a doubt she probably engineered the whole thing as her and her boss fought constantly and she ran him down every chance she got.
So she got the "golden handshake" and promptly set herself up in private business! Lets just say "She is doing very, very well"? She has the confidence of developers and landowners as the "go to guy" who will get things done! They lost a good one when they let her go. Brenda Hoskins.