A well-attended community meeting featuring community members, village representatives, and Paintearth County representatives was held in the Halkirk Senior's Centre on June 13 to discuss the future of the community.
The meeting comes following another meeting the village council had with Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver where it was stated that the village really was "not viable," according to Mayor Jan Koenraadt.
Hosted by Karen Blewett, a representative of the Alberta Government, the meeting took the approximately 40 people in attendance and broke them into groups, giving them all an opportunity to look at the community's strengths and weaknesses and have a say on the evening's proceedings.
One of the biggest strengths noted by the community was the support Halkirk receives from the County of Paintearth.
"The county is very much willing to help us out," said Koenraadt.
Another positive coming out of the meeting was that there is a "tight-knit" sense of community in the village, particularly now that there is a new council and chief administrator.
A third is the facilities in the community, which includes the playground, community hall, senior's centre, campground and more, all of which see use.
The most significant challenge the village is facing is financing.
Koenraadt says that for 2024, the taxes raised from the village's approximately 90 residents will only bring in around $100,000.
That goes hand-in-hand with the second major challenge the village is facing: infrastructure.
According to a viability study that was done before the last dissolution vote, the village has millions worth of capital infrastructure projects that need to be done without a tax base to support their completion.
Some discussion was held around what would change if the community were to dissolve into the county, with questions raised surrounding garbage collection and mowing, though none of the county representatives at the meeting had any real answers at the moment.
Some suggestions were made that if the village were to dissolve that the county could get better use out of infrastructure dollars that are spent in the community.
However, Koenraadt noted that the county is already heavily involved in the community and that wouldn't change; one change that would happen with dissolution would be the loss of a local council and administration.
The County of Paintearth already helps the village with snow-clearing in the winter, with water work, and other various repairs.
With the dissolution, everything would be taken over by the county councillors and the county administration.
County Coun. Terry Vockeroth noted that any dissolution vote needs to look long-term as well.
"Eight years from now, if there's a problem with the community hall, does the council of the day fix it or close it saying that there is a perfectly good one in Castor?" asked Vockeroth.
According to Village of Halkirk chief administrative officer Marcy Renschler in a separate discussion, before any decisions are made by the village council there will be more public engagement and another village-wide dissolution vote to occur, potentially sometime this fall.
