The Village of Delia has a new face in its office as it moves into 2017.
    Mark Nikota has taken on the role of CAO.
    Nikota started at the Village of Delia at the end of September. He has experience in local government as he served as Mayor of Hanna. He is also active on the Drumheller-Stettler Progressive Conservative Constituency Association.
 While he is new at the village, he said last year was productive for Delia.
    “As far as good things, in 2016, we got some infrastructure projects completed,” he said. “It was fairly comprehensive, there was some sewer and water done and some paving, all on one street.”
    He says looking forward to the new year, he is looking at regional collaboration.
    “Going forward, we are going to try and get the village working together, especially with surrounding communities, Drumheller being one of them and Starland County.”
    He said economic development is a priority.
    “We want to get some businesses here and try to spur the economy. The whole area has been stagnating with what is going on, but for Delia like other small towns, we just want to get things moving forward and try to attract people to the village.”
    The first thing to look at in the new year is the budget.
    “We haven’t laid things down. What I think we will be doing is taking a serious look at the budget,” he said. “We can’t do a lot of infrastructure year after year because it is costly and we have a small tax base. We are still waiting on MSI (Municipal Sustainability Initiative) funding announcement from the province. We don’t know where we stand as far as grant money. That will drive a large part of what we are planning to do.”

    The Electoral Boundaries Commission was through the valley Tuesday to gather input on concerns about elected representation leading in the next provincial vote.
    The Electoral Boundaries Commission has the goal of drawing the electoral map to be representative of the residents of Alberta. Right now, they are going to various communities to hear feedback from residents. Chair of the Commission Justice Myra Bielby says they are receiving useful input.
    “It is gratifying for people, that once they start hearing about it, got into it and realized they could say something about their neighbourhood and the constituency, that is helpful to us,” she tells inSide Drumheller. “We have had an increasingly good response. I think the more we have done and the more it gets out in the press, then the more people have something to say.”
    She said when the last review was completed, it received 500 written submissions for the whole review. This time, they have had 350 in the first two weeks. This could be spurred on by the changes in media and delivery.
    “We have social media, a Facebook page, you can put in your submission right on our website, things people didn’t have before,” said Justice Bielby. “It still shows there is a good level of interest.”
    The Drumheller meeting was fruitful.
    “Today is the first day we looked at this constituency. We heard some very good suggestions supported by reasons as to why we should go in one direction and not the other. So when we come to discussing this constituency some time in a couple weeks to do our draft of recommendations, we will have that input.”
    Bruce McLeod, Mayor of Acme is on the Commission and says the input is helpful.
    “We have had suggestions in this area, for example, that it should stay the same. Again that is another consideration, we look at the whole scope of everything we need to,” he said. “We really encourage everyone to attend these meetings.”
    One concrete example of this input is the case of Special Areas.
    “Today someone explained Special Areas to me. I didn’t know what that meant. I had heard the term before, but haven’t thought to ask, but now I know in a much better way how the population is distributed in the Drumheller-Stettler constituency, that there is a large area in the centre with a very sparse population,” said Justice Bielby. “This constituency does have special characteristics, unique to it.”
     “People are concerned about losing their effective voice in the legislature and that’s our concern too. Our job here is to make sure everybody has an effective voice and every MLA is in the best possible position to represent their constituency.”
    The Commission will publish its interim report on May 31 and the report on October 31.