HUMBOLDT β Humboldt is approaching the Mid-Sask Municipal Alliance about the possibility of negotiating a new relationship with the regional alliance of towns, villages and rural municipalities.
The city voted to withdraw from the alliance back in May 2020. The majority of council felt there was too much focus on updating planning bylaws and getting them to a modern standard, which benefited the allianceβs smaller communities more than the city.
In December, Celine Favreau, the allianceβs operations and planning director, asked council to reconsider the withdrawal, telling them that companies that make investments in a region want to see active collaboration between local municipalities.
Michael Behiel, Humboldtβs mayor, said the city is planning to use the money it spent on the Mid-Sask Municipal Alliance for its own economic development committee.
βBut realizing that regional co-operation is extremely important, we want to try and make sure that we're not isolating ourselves at the same time,β he said.
βThe balance is to try and determine how much we want to do on our own and how much we want to do with them.β
The mayor said that while he understands the alliance has to work to benefit its members, the city felt the resources it was investing into the alliance weren't being used to market Humboldt to the extent it wanted.
βThat's where we wish to reallocate some of the money from our membership, so we're trying to determine if a different degree of membership or some other Memorandum of Understanding would work better for us to move forward with that.β
Even if the city does not return to the alliance, Behiel said his plan is to form a degree of regional co-operation with the surrounding RMs and communities within the economic development committee in a manner that should be beneficial to all.
