The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Creighton's sudden entry into the cottage fire protection hullabaloo is as surprising as it is consequential. As The Reminder reported Wednesday, the North of 54 Cottage Owners Association has asked the Town of Creighton to consider providing fire protection to the cabin subdivisions east of Flin Flon. The association is promising Creighton at least $30,000 a year for its troubles, similar to how cottagers near The Pas have worked out funding deals with that municipality. This is a twist that few people saw coming. Over the summer, when cottage association reps rejected the City of Flin Flon's final fire protection offer, there appeared to be no other way for cottagers to receive reliable, year-round fire coverage. With Flin Flon, money was the sticking point. The city wanted $300 a year from every road-accessible cottage, even though cottagers near The Pas pay, at most, $75 a year for the same service. There may well be legitimate factors contributing to the wildly different price tags but, regardless, one can hardly blame the cottagers for shopping around. Their offer to Creighton of at least $30,000 works out to about $83 for every cottage in the Flin Flon region, but that's before you take into account two important factors. First, of the 363 cottages that Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship says are in this region, many are not road-accessible and thus would likely not pay a fire fee. Second, Conservation is likely to chip in some funding of its own in order to have fire protection for Bakers Narrows Provincial Park, where many cottagers reside. The fire agreement between the Town of The Pas and cottagers at Clearwater Lake Provincial Park, for instance, is worth $28,000 a year _ with Conservation providing $8,000. Own blazes? What about The Pas battling blazes in its own community? Each cottage agreement the town has signed makes it clear that in the event of two simultaneous fires _ one in cottage country, the other in The Pas _ the latter shall take precedence. Closer to home, the promise of $30,000 or more annually, in exchange for battling what is statistically less than one fire a year in cottage country, must seem awfully appealing to Creighton and its small but talented fire department. With a fire hall located mere moments from Flin Flon's, it is difficult to imagine why Creighton would turn down this proposal, though these issues are often more complicated than they seem at first blush. If Creighton does indeed sign on the dotted line, and the cottagers secure a better price for fire protection than they could have through Flin Flon, there is bound to be some hard feelings on the side of Flin Flon and its proponents. Those would amount to sour grapes. Should Creighton turn down a substantial new source of fire department revenue? Should cottagers pay more than they have to? To answer no to either question is to be unreasonable. Objectively speaking, Flin Flon city council had every right to ask cottagers to begin funding fire protection. It simply was not fair to expect Flin Flon taxpayers to subsidize this service. And cottagers, in losing fire services from Flin Flon as of July 1, had every reason to investigate alternative sources of fire protection. Now all sides will wait to see what Creighton town council, not known for backing down from big ideas, will do. **** Flin Flon and area outdid itself at last weekend's Relay for Life cancer-fighting fundraiser, raising a no-this-is-not-a-misprint total of nearly $150,000 _ almost $120,000 in cash donations and about $30,000 in in-kind donations. As I took in the opening ceremonies, it was hard not to be moved by the several dozen cancer survivors as they walked the first lap of the event. Let's all look forward to the day when there are no more cancer survivors _ because there is no more cancer. Local Angle runs Fridays.
