It’s not off the table. It’s on the back burner.”
That’s how Mayor Cal Huntley sums up his position on cottage country annexation.
Huntley has pledged his willingness to resume previously established talks on a funding agreement between the City of Flin Flon and area cottagers.
In doing so, he is keeping annexation – the expansion of Flin Flon’s borders to encompass some or all of cottage country – in his basket of options.
“It’s not off the table. It’s on the back burner,” Huntley recently told The Reminder. “The cottage areas are a work in progress, and as they are a work in progress I’m not going to comment too much about anything with regards to that other than, we’re in the process – and this is a slow time of the year because lots of [cottagers] aren’t out there, aren’t around right now – but it’s about building relationships and moving forward. But, no, annexation – and they’re aware of this, too – is still on the table. It’s always on the table until you come to some sort of a resolution.”
Hear out mayor
Asked to respond to Huntley’s statement, Jane Robillard, a year-round Bakers Narrows resident, said she is willing to hear out the mayor.
“I think we will have some agreement between the cottagers and the city time in the future,” she said. “It is important that there be some fair dialogue and that the cottage group are not seen as the rich folks at the lake. That is not the case for many seniors who
have chosen to retire and live here either full-time or during the summer. We all want fire protection but not at a truly unrealistic fee. I think Mayor Huntley is being cautious as we have not been in [The Reminder] for months. We look forward to hearing from him on this matter and not through the paper or rumours in the community.”
A number of cottagers want the city to resume fire protection in cabin subdivisions, a service that was revoked in mid 2013 when funding talks fell apart.
The previous city council also tried to convince cottagers o pay for other municipal services but achieved no success.
Former mayor George Fontaine drew the ire of many cottagers for mentioning annexation as a last-resort possibility.
In February 2014, Fontaine and his council asked the Manitoba government to amalgamate cottage country with the city in the same way that small southern municipalities were forced to merge. This was rejected.
Before coming to office last fall, Huntley said a fresh, more conversational approach was needed in dealing with the cottagers.
But how does his preferred resolution differ from that of Fontaine? Huntley will only reveal so much at this stage.
“Well, again, given that it’s a work in progress I’m not sure I want to share all the details of my thoughts around that,” Huntley said. “Certainly they’re my thoughts as an individual [but] I have six other councillors that have to be engaged and their thoughts need to be considered as well. Five out of the six of them were under the previous mayor and supported that position. So at some point in time that position didn’t work. The position that the cottage association had didn’t work with the previous council and mayor. We have to get through that.
“It’s a work in progress. I don’t know where we’ll end up at the end of the day. I think we’ll come to some sort of a resolve. There has to be more conversation within the new council under my leadership going forward, but it’s not a pressing matter at this point in time. The dollars are something that are needed to – would be nice to have to – support the community, and I think in many cases the cottage association and the cottagers out there would like to support.
“It’s just finding the right mechanism to do that, and…we’re going to try and do that over the next period of time. There’s no time frame involved. The question was about annexation, is it off the table? No. It’s not off the table. It’s still a conversation piece, for sure. Till everything’s resolved, everything’s on the table, right?”
While the city could apply to the Manitoba government to annex cottagers, the province would have the final say.
