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Committee will look at tax incentives

TREENA MIELKE/Rimbey Review

The business community and town council have come to a stalemate over tax incentives.

While neither side has made concessions regarding the incentives, it has been decided to form a committee of council members and the business community to discuss the issue further.

The committee is composed of Mayor Sheldon Ibbotson, Coun. Gail Rondeel and business representatives Michelle Oberhammer (Lions president), Jackie Stratton, (chamber president) Stan Cummings (owner of Best Western Hotel) and Steffen Olsen (developer).

Mayor Sheldon Ibbotson is pleased to be part of the committee.

“We will have an opportunity to examine the package regarding the tax incentives they (the businesses) brought to us and make recommendations which will attract new businesses to Rimbey.” In his presentation to council at its April 13 meeting, Olsen said he believes the business community has made positive inroads toward communicating with council.

“We anticipate the challenge for development solutions as a good opportunity to open the areas of communication with the town. In the end, we can all benefit in a viable community that continues to encourage growth and development.”

He said the business community has spent many hours researching reasons why tax incentives should be acceptable in this community.

They have accepted the challenge to find other communities that have tax incentive initiatives in place.

“The summary of this challenge is that, yes, there certainly are numerous communities with tax incentives in place, and, yes, there are a few communities that do not provide incentives,” he told council. “However, the majority of Alberta communities encourage economic growth and development in residential, commercial and industrial areas in some form.”

Olsen said the business community also explored tax incentive legalities.

He said a meeting with Alberta Municipal Affairs proved beneficial and information from that government agency indicated that wording of the present bylaw regarding tax incentives could be changed to better reflect the purposes of the Municipal Government Act.

“Alberta Municipal Affairs advised the business community that they would be more than willing to work with us and council with the wording of a new policy.”

In concluding his presentation, Olsen noted that the business community would have appreciated notification that the tax incentives had been eliminated.

“The elimination of the business tax incentive has an immediate and direct impact on fees or rates for the affected business community. Now, combine that hardship with not receiving any prior notice of the change, so no time to prepare, and compound that with no satisfactory additional evidence of the tax incentive’s lack of credibility.”