The City of Flin Flon could offer a legally binding pledge not to annex cottage country as part of a deal with cabin owners, in the view of Chief Administrative Officer Mark Kolt.
The statement from Kolt, who holds a law degree, could be perceived as at odds with information presented to cottagers prior to their recent vote on a funding agreement with the city.
“I think that on the question of whether an agreement not to enter into annexation could be created, I think legally that could be done,” Kolt said in response to a question from The Reminder at last week’s council meeting. “Now you’d have to have a council that was convinced that the proposal in question was worth doing that [for], and right now this particular council has not reached that point in its discussions with the cottage owners.”
Kolt said that while one council can have its bylaws overturned by future councils, a signed agreement is governed by provincial law.
“The province can, and the federal government can, create legislation that changes the ordinary rules of how parties contract,” Kolt said. “I mean, very occasionally you see them do that, but the city hasn’t got that sort of direct power. It can change rules, but not contractual terms.”
But at the recent North of 54 Cottage Owners meeting, cabin owners heard from their leadership that there can be no iron-clad guarantee from the city against annexation.
Dave Kennedy, president of North of 54, said that in cottagers’ discussions with the city around a no-annexation pledge, there “was never any certainty on their side that it could be done.”
Asked if that lack of certainty was a key factor in cottagers’ overwhelming Sept. 10 vote against a deal with the city, Kennedy said he didn’t think so.
That said, there could still be apprehension on the part of cottagers by virtue of the fact that agreements can come with an expiry date.
If the city agreed not to annex cottagers for the duration of a 10-year deal, for instance, the council in place a decade into a future may or may not be eager to seek renewal.
Meanwhile, there are differing accounts of what sort of deal the now-failed talks between the city and cottagers may have produced.
When council was asked last week whether a no-annexation pledge was part of what was offered to cottagers, Coun. Ken Pawlachuk said: “No, that was their stipulation. We haven’t said.”
And when council was asked another question about the city proposal to cottagers, Coun. Colleen McKee said: “There was no city proposal.”
But Kennedy, who is part of North of 54’s negotiating committee, said the city had in fact offered, to the extent that it could, to withdraw annexation from the table of options.
Asked whether the city put forth a formal offer to North of 54, Kennedy said the financial terms – $250 a year for seasonal cottagers and $650 a year for year-round cottagers – were formal but many details hadn’t been worked out.
Mayor George Fontaine said council didn’t know that North of 54 intended to hold a vote based on a meeting between the city and cottagers that ended in disagreement.
“We left with no promise that they were going to present anything to their people,” Fontaine said. “As a matter of fact, they suggested they probably were not going to present anything to their people and then we find out they had a vote, so it’s pretty hard to comment on that.”
Kennedy agreed that was a fair description of what took place at the meeting.
“I don’t think we were under any obligation to have or not have a vote,” said Kennedy, adding that North of 54 nevertheless wanted to know where its membership stood.
Fontaine said that “any negotiation is a what-if” until there’s an agreement in place.
The mayor added that he doesn’t expect any further moves from either the city or cottagers until after the Oct. 22 election.
The city offer, as outlined by North of 54 at its recent annual meeting, would have revived year-round fire protection for cottagers near Flin Flon. It would have also seen year-round cottagers contribute toward other municipal expenses.
North of 54 leadership was open to annual municipal fees of $50 and $200 for seasonal and year-round cottagers respectively, but it’s not clear whether the membership as a whole is supportive of those amounts.
In terms of the oft-discussed potential of Flin Flon annexing cottage country, all the city can do is make an application if it ever chooses to do so. The final say rests with the provincial government.
