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Dear Santa – Outlook Christmas wishes

With the holidays upon us, the staff at the Rocky Mountain Outlook wanted to share with our readers a few of the things from our own wish list, submitted to Santa Claus himself, outlining the gifts we would love to unwrap for next year.

With the holidays upon us, the staff at the Rocky Mountain Outlook wanted to share with our readers a few of the things from our own wish list, submitted to Santa Claus himself, outlining the gifts we would love to unwrap for next year.

We know with somewhat certainty that Banff council will officially approve audio-visual recording and live streaming of council and committee meetings beginning in 2019 – this gift couldn’t come soon enough.

While the final vote on the operating budget won’t occur until 2019, it appears there is wide ranging support on council to support the new service (see story on page 21).

In fact, Canmore council and municipalities have been live web streaming meetings of elected officials for years already, leaving many scratching their heads about what would prohibit Banff’s town council from taking a similar tactic to increase transparency and accountability in its chambers.

We are going to count this as a gift from Santa we can bank on, given the discussions at Banff’s budget service review meetings so far have been favourable for bringing council into 2019 with the rest of us – live streamed on the Internet.

The bonus present under the Christmas tree for next year would be to have all committee meetings in Canmore and Banff, not just council meetings, recorded and broadcast online.

Speaking of meetings, how about if all democratically elected government bodies were to make their entire meeting agendas public in advance of their collective publicly funded gatherings.

We are looking at you Canadian Rockies Public Schools and the MD of Bighorn council, specifically.

The latter, doesn’t even have a downloadable version of its agenda meeting available online for the public to peruse and CRPS only provides an agenda, without any staff reports or links to the documents to be publicly presented to them at their school board meetings.

These affronts to transparency in the 21st century are inexcusable because both elected government bodies have the ability to make these documents available to the public in advance of their meetings. The question is, do they have the will to make it so? Maybe Santa can show them the light for us all.

If Mr. Claus really wanted to work a Christmas miracle, he could get basic requests for information and interviews returned from Parks Canada and the provincial government in a timely manner. Outlook staffers are more likely to get coal in their stockings, however, than see such miracles performed.

Surely Santa will deliver all Bow Valley residents a helping of recommended changes to address human wildlife coexistence in 2019.

You see, in 2018 a report was released on human wildlife coexistence in the valley that contained a number of proposed changes – some that might be a bitter pill to swallow for those who cherish the species that call this place home as accessories to the lifestyle they have purchased along with a home here.

There are a lot of tough changes being called for by wildlife experts involved in the drafting of that report, including but not limited to, banning fruit bearing trees in our communities; dealing with the feral rabbit management issue; fencing playgrounds to prevent elk from using them as habitat and to avoid predation.

We look forward to the vigorous debate in our communities around these issues and how as responsible citizens we can change our behaviours to manage human activity on the landscape affecting wildlife connectivity.

With Christmas upon us next week, we hope Santa brings us all that we deserve this year – quality time with family, friends and loved ones and shared experiences that build upon our sense of community.


Rocky Mountain Outlook

About the Author: Rocky Mountain Outlook

The Rocky Mountain Outlook is Bow Valley's No. 1 source for local news and events.
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