Redcliff's Small Town Pride

Tonight on Bring Back The Porch, Redcliff Mayor Chris Czember shares insights on local infrastructure projects, community identity, and future plans for the town, highlighting the importance of strategic planning and community engagement.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and episode overview
01:22 Redcliff's community identity and small-town feel
03:00 Infrastructure audits and recent upgrades
05:35 Maintaining town identity and avoiding amalgamation
06:58 Prioritizing infrastructure projects and citizen input
08:47 Fifth Street infrastructure program and funding
10:12 Balancing infrastructure repair and budget constraints
12:17 Regional cooperation and economic development
13:21 Yard and property standards in Redcliff
14:42 Upcoming community events and festivals
16:00 Potential changes in policing services
17:58 Support for the local Legion and its anniversary
19:51 Future projects and long-term planning
20:29 School development and infrastructure progress
22:12 Housing development and land sales
23:00 How to follow town council meetings


Mayor Czember reflected on the importance of Redcliff's unique character, emphasizing how surveys reveal that citizens cherish their small-town feel. “What do you like about Redcliff? It’s the own identity, the small town feel,” he noted. This sentiment resonates strongly in the community, especially as discussions around amalgamation have surfaced in the past.

The mayor shared insights into the ongoing infrastructure audit mandated for all municipalities. This audit aims to assess the condition of town-owned buildings and prioritize necessary repairs. The town hall, museum, and recreational facilities were highlighted, with the museum identified as needing significant upgrades.  With a budget that must stretch to cover repairs across approximately 250 city blocks, he acknowledged that maintaining infrastructure is a constant challenge. “Every municipality has an infrastructure deficit, meaning we're not repairing as much as is deteriorating,” he explained. The ongoing Fifth Street infrastructure project, a significant undertaking with a budget of approximately $2.5 million, exemplifies these efforts.

Mayor Czember's reflections underscore the balance between maintaining Redcliff's identity and addressing its infrastructural challenges. As he aptly put it, managing these demands requires careful prioritization and community involvement.

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again, and I'd like to ask you to do a favor. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please like, share, subscribe, tell your friends about Bring Back the Porch. Whenever we do surveys of citizens. What do you like about Redcliff? It's the own identity, the small town feel. So really pointing away from amalgamation. And I know that was a hot topic years ago. Very hot topic. Yeah. And we really get told that over and over again. Still some people, of course, you can't paint everybody but with the same brush. But but we get told over and over again through those surveys. At least that's how I interpret it anyways, is we do appreciate our own identity. This episode will bring back the Porch, brought to you by medicine at Monumental Crafting Quality Memorials of Distinction since 1970, we'll bring back to porch is a place where we have neighborly conversations, and we're happy to welcome our neighbor from the town of Redcliff, the mayor, Chris Czember. Well, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate the invitation, and I'm very flattered that you want to talk to me. Well, Redcliff has always been one of my favourites because for years, of course, I spent a lot of time in the town of Redcliff working at chat television on the West End of Broadway, and then we moved on to the very east end of Broadway, just off on Boundary Road there. So very familiar with that building. It was a place that went to every day, not so much in the last year, so I thought we'd get caught up on just what's happening. You've had almost a year now as the mayor. How would you sum up the last year? Well, I get this question quite often. I was councilor, of course, for two terms before, so eight years before, and certainly gave me a at least at the very least, a pretty good insight on what to expect. So no huge surprises. I guess, if I were to say if there was any surprise phone certainly rings a little bit more. I do like to go on vacation. Vegas is my my happy place, but my phone's always on. I always say that when I had my campaign, I really promoted good communication between the citizens, the administration and then administration to council. So part of that is my phone is always on. I can be in Vegas, I can be wherever I will answer my phone. So so that's certainly one thing. But you got to be on top of things or else all these phone backs just mount. Yeah. And be insurmountable. Yeah. You don't need an elephant in one bite. Exactly. That's a very good analogy. I use it all the time. Yeah, we were talking before we started here. I recalled that a couple of years ago. I think the town of Redcliff did an infrastructure audit, and one of the things that was at the top of the list was the red cliff rectangle, which has been taken care of. It's really looking in good shape. What else is on that list that you're working on? Well, just a little background on that. The province did mandate that every municipality do an infrastructure audit, and it just makes good planning sense. Just so that way we know and we have some education and some information when we make decisions on all these assets. So basically what they did was they went out and we paid somebody to do an audit on every building that's owned by the town and give us some feedback on it. Did we necessarily agree with everything that was there? No, but we certainly got some information from it and certainly some information that we weren't familiar with. Now, on the topic of the rectangle itself, you spent a lot of money on it in the last few years. I think if it's not complete, it's very close to complete, but I'm pretty sure it's complete right now. We just did a ice plant upgrade with a company out of Calgary called frozen, and then we added some bells and whistles as well that we didn't have before. And that was due in large part to a grant from the province. So a lot of things were identified there. Most of the things we knew years ago, I believe it was my first term, one of my first couple of years. We put some money into the roof. It was leaking. It's an old building and a lot of these municipalities are running into the same problem. Back in the, I want to say, 70s. There was a lot of grant money out there. Maybe you recall. Yeah, but there's a lot of grant money out there to build all these rinks in these small communities. And now they're kind of getting at that age where, yeah, they're got to put a lot of money into them or build a whole new one. And there's different solutions to that problem. We did talk about doing a regional ice sheet out in Box Springs as well, but the timing wasn't right. And most accounts were kind of felt that the citizens of Redcliff liked the idea of walking to the local ice rink instead of sharing one with the city. We would have had our own sheet out there for our own control, but it just wouldn't feel like ours. And that's the thing. Redcliff has its own identity. It is not Medicine Hat, and they're very proud of that. Yes we are whenever we do surveys of citizens. What do you like about Redcliff? It's the own identity, the small town feel. So really pointing away from amalgamation. And I know that was a hot topic. Years very hot topic. Yeah. And we really get told that over and over again. Still some people, of course, you can't beat everybody with the same brush, but but we get told over and over again through those surveys. At least that's how I interpret it anyways, is we do appreciate our own identity. That audit of your infrastructure, what else is on that list that might be pending? So the museum was a big thing. It told us that museum was in very poor condition. It was right. And we voted to really shore up the front of the building. I believe that was $250,000 project, maybe a $300,000 project. It was not unanimous to to do it, but we did vote to do it. And the front of it looks it looks so much better now. So the museum was identified as a big thing, and it went through every asset that we had the town hall, the town hall itself, the senior center, the library, etc., etc. so it identified probably problems with every building. As I always say, when you buy a house, you get a home inspection, they will find something wrong and that that rings true with this as well. They will find something wrong with every building. It's their job and that's okay. That's what we want them to do. We don't want them to just give it a rubber stamp saying, oh no, it's good. Doesn't need anything. You know, at the very least, maybe the HVAC is 25 years old. Something. Yeah. So do you systematically go down that list then, or does council say, well, we really don't think that this is necessary now you have to make those priorities. Yeah, exactly. Hit the nail on the head there. That's our job. We got a list of far 4 or 500 things that we could do as far as projects in the town. And it's our job to prioritize a budget time and a lot of time with input from the people. I always say when we get citizen requests for budget, we take those so seriously as long as it's a reasonable request. We've had requests for for a new recreation facility. Well, that's great and wonderful. We'd love to do it. Every $68,000 is a 1% increase. And you just asked for a $15 million thing so we could do a 300% budget increase or a tax increase. But as the City of Medicine knows, that 6.1% people start to push back a little bit. So some things just aren't realistic. But, you know, more, more. Equipment at the park. That was one that we did at Lions Park. We wanted more. Somebody asked for more toddler friendly equipment. Okay, we can do that. That's reasonable. But but yeah, as far as the assessment on the on the buildings, there is something wrong with every building, of course, but nothing to be alarmed about for the most part, and things that we already knew about. So we just had to prioritize. And we're still prioritizing. We still use that document at budget time. That's the important thing. It didn't get put on a shelf to gather dust. Of course, and that happens far too often, that's for sure. A lot of studies and whatnot, and there's just no getting around it. One of the infrastructure projects you're working on right now is the Fifth Street Infrastructure program. Upgrades to some sanitary sewer and things like that big chunk of of your town. Yeah, it's a big project for us. If I were to guess, I would say we have probably 200 city blocks of street frontage. And if you say there's 200 blocks, I'm probably even a little low on that, probably 250. And if you say each street deteriorates generously after 40 years, that means we should be doing 5 to 6 blocks every year to keep up. And we're not immune to the problem that every municipality has. Every municipality has an infrastructure deficit, meaning we're not repairing as much as as is deteriorating. And the simple reason is dollars and cents. That project, I think it ends up being about $2.5 million. That's a lot of money to a small community like ours. Our whole taxation base is about 7 million. Our whole budget is 21 million. That's including all of our income from water, not income, but our fees for water and garbage and sewer services. Yeah. Exactly. So. And rental, the facilities and whatnot. So what's the leftover? Is about $7 million rounded up. So that's a big chunk of our taxation base right there. And every municipality has the same problem. Yeah. And you, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't because there's some people. Why are you spending that money? Why aren't you fixing it? And then why? No, I can't get to my house because the road is torn up. So you're almost in a no end situation. And add on to that, if you don't repair it and just do no tax increases, well, then you're just pushing the problem down the road and your infrastructure deficit is just growing and growing. So I mean, it sure is nice to say we had no tax increase. We had a very minimal tax increase this year. That makes people happy for the meantime. But over the long run it's probably not good for you. So I guess the other side of that equation is growing your tax base economic development. Yeah, yeah. Easier said than done. Oh yeah. They've talked about it for years. Yes. We talk and talk and talk till you're blue in the face. And it certainly came up as a topic during the campaign as well. My answer to that was probably, I guess, twofold. Be ready and willing when the developer or the investor comes to you say, hey, yeah, this sounds like something we're interested in. What can we do to make sure that you come here? And the other approach is go out and try to be proactive and try to attract people. And that's harder said than done as well. I mean, it's easy to go out. One of the previous mayors, from my understanding, old, not old, sorry, but. Former. Former mayor Bill Duncan, I assume, with direction from council, went out to Ottawa and attracted Ottawa Fiber to come to Redcliff after the Don glass shut down. And so that was a good example. That was that was productive for the town then. I can't say that we've really had any instances where where that would have worked for us so far in my terms anyways, but would certainly be open to being proactive. I guess one of those things would be going to trade shows and try to attract people, but I don't know, by the time you go and rent a table and staff it and it, I'm not sold that they are all that productive, but they do have these trade shows and they fill up. So I'm sure somebody out there has some experience with it. But there is an opportunity for regional cooperation and economic development and all that was touched on during the recent state of the region address. Yeah, absolutely. And kind of the underlying message there is whatever is good for Medicine hat should be good for the region. So collaboration is certainly a thing that we all strive towards. It's somewhat difficult to achieve sometimes, but we're all fairly good friends and neighbors here. I think from what I'm told years past, maybe relationships weren't as strong as they are now. And I'm not even saying the relationships are good or bad now, but they can always be better. Yeah, there's always going to be a friction among neighbors because there's always something that's going to be an irritant. I mean, look at the Canada-U.S. relations in the last 18 months. I've never noticed. No, no. We never talk about that. No. But certainly neighbors are can be a pain sometime. If Bruce is watching. One of the things that you always hear about the town of Radcliff is some people complaining about how people keep their yards and homes, and you put a notice on your web page about reminding people about their responsibilities for their back alleys. Yeah. And that's an ongoing problem. I'm sure, once again, with every municipality, yeah, you get the neighbors that have great yards and the ones that just seem to attract clutter were experiencing a bit of a different problem. There's there's a few businesses that have been bought up and just seem to be alienated. They're not operating anymore. One example of that is I own the pub in Redcliff. Right across the street from me is the old restaurant, and somebody bought it and the rumor was was supposed to be a daycare. Nothing's ever came of it. And the weeds are just growing. And yeah, I've gone out and sprayed the weeds myself. Yeah. But and I know recently the town just went and cut down the weeds during Redcliff days because it's such a such an eyesore for such a big event for the town. Yeah. And it's right on the main drag. To is and I just don't understand what's going on, but I guess I'm not the owner. It doesn't matter what. I think as long as the taxes are paid. I guess that's the thing. You had Redcliff days in June, another successful event. You got something? A little too much rain. Well, we're in farming community. That's right. Rain is always welcome, except when you're trying to harvest or plant. But that's another topic. But you have a fall festival and a chilly Cook-Off that is planned for September the 26th. Yeah, yeah. So call it a mini Redcliff days, I suppose. And yeah, it's a newer event to us and it seems to be very well attended over the years, weather permitting, of course, but we've had more good weather than bad weather for it in years past. So yeah, it's a good, fun event for the community to bring families out and whatnot. Not always seems to be very welcome. And that's at Lyons Park. Yeah, yeah, the chili cookoff part is of interest because it used to happen in Medicine Hat and then it kind of disappeared. I hear people on social media going, well, we want to chili cookoff. Well, here you go. And I think if I remember reading correctly, all the ingredients are supplied. Yes. Yeah. We got good donations from the local greenhouses and whatnot. But yeah, try to make it as cost effective to enter as possible trying to ensure participation. But speaking of the medicine actually cookoff, that was always a very, very well attended event. Yeah. And brought people into the downtown. Yeah it did. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that is looking at provincially that will affect the town of Radcliff is the establishment of a new policing service and the option for towns and municipalities to go with that instead of the CMB. Anything on the burner for that? For the town of Redcliff? Well, we've discussed it a little bit. Personally, for me, there's just not enough details out there about it to pass judgment on it. And and the province just seems to want us to give our opinion on it, whether we're yay or nay. Well, what does it look like? We truly don't know yet. And so I think it's a little premature to to go down that road and show support one way or the other, but policing is becoming more and more of an issue. It's becoming very expensive. RCMP are having a big issue with staffing. They seem to always be understaffed and and hard and soft vacancies going on, and it's just downright expensive. Yeah, yeah. But no offense to the RCMP. They're having that problem nationwide. Yeah, yeah. And the town of Redcliff are also doing the social needs assessment survey. Or people can go on to your website I think can complete that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a survey going online and, and I'm not exactly too familiar with what FC's plans to do with that information, but certainly encourage people to go out and take part. Public engagement always seems to be too low. It's the same ten people all the time. If we can get more and more people out there to to help give information and direction to the town, any municipality would probably mimic my comments there that they always get the same same people. So more public engagement the better. It seems like there's a lot of public engagement on Facebook, but those people are usually hiding behind anonymous names, which that never happens. But yeah, you wonder sometimes if there's a kernel of truth in some of that, or if it's just people, you know, trying to stir the water, stir the. Pot kernel, the truth mixed in with some misinterpretation. And I'll even throw out the word misinformation as well. But yeah, you know, the internet is a great thing, but it is also being used for some other purposes that I don't think was designed for. But another topic again there too. That's a whole another show. The Legion in Redcliff is is struggling. It's been trying to keep its head above water, and I think it has come to town council with a request to help with some of the projects that they're looking at for their 100th anniversary. Yeah, yeah, that was at our last council meeting. They came to us with, I believe it was three different projects. They wanted to revitalize their mural. They want to do a crosswalk kind of mimicking what medicine had did. I thought that was just a great idea for Remembrance Day. And the third thing was, it'll come to me when the camera is off, I promise. But it was a total ask of about $10,800, which I don't think that they were expecting to get the full amount. But but you're right, they're struggling to keep their head above water, is what they tell us. And hundredth anniversary is a big deal for them and big deal for the community. So we actually passed a motion that we would give them$5,000 towards their projects, and that the town itself would look into possibly if we have the the time to do the painting of the crosswalk ourselves, just to save them a little bit of labor on that. So let their $5,000 go a little bit farther. So I think they seem very happy about that number that we helped them out with. And so hopefully they can have a good celebration. Yeah. We recently did a podcast with Wes Kraus talking about the 100th anniversary of the Legion in Canada and the celebrations that were at the Robertson Memorial Branch, number 17. But Redcliff, we did mention it. They are number six. Number six. You about six. Yeah. We were there far before. Yeah. 1926 was when it was all organized. So if you can support the people in Redcliff at the Legion, please do. Yeah, it's for a good cause, for sure. As you look into your crystal ball for 2026 and into 2027, what do you see? What's coming over the horizon? Oh, well, we got the big project that we talked a lot about during the campaign was the new school. So that is taking steps forward. And as government goes it's it's slow steps forward. So when you got three different governing bodies the school board, the province in the town, we don't want to. So our job as a town is we have to build the road and get the infrastructure to the property. And we've already given them the land. Now it's it's in the process. So we want to make sure that the province has the money and gives the go ahead to it, because they can pull the rug out from whatever they want. So we don't want to build the road until we absolutely no. So we don't want to build a road to nowhere. We'd look pretty silly if we did that. And that caused some frustration amongst a few people and myself included. But the province has finally started with their most recent recent budget, started to allocate some funds to this project. So everything's looking really good. There was a couple of nail biting moments there, but the province has stepped up and we got things going in the right direction. Would have been nice if it was a year ago, but. How far out, how far down the road? So it goes down, Mitchell and then you hang a left on ninth Ave into our new area, East side. And then it's just on the north side of the east side. If you're following me there. Yeah, south of the RCMP station, I guess would probably be the easiest way to put it. So that's where the school is going to go over in that area. And what is the time frame for that? Well, if you asked me two years ago, yeah, we would have seen a lot more progress on it by now. But I suspect it's probably going to be 2028 school year. Okay. Well, that's not that far. It'll be here before you know it. Hopefully so. But I'm glad you're not recording this and quoting me on it. Yeah, well, wait a minute. Things change. Things change. Yeah, that does happen. And plans change. Anything else that you wanted to bring up about events? Things that are happening in Redcliff? Jesus put me on the spot here. We never discussed this. How about housing? Do you have land for people to build houses on? Yeah, absolutely. And on that topic of the school site, when we're building the road, we're also developing some lots as well. So there's going to be some more lots for sale because we're getting pretty low on inventory there. And as you know, lots don't just show up overnight for sale. So it takes some time and some planning ahead, some forethought and some engineering and money. So yeah. So we're going to have so we do have some land for sale. We do have some infill lots as well, which we have some incentives on, which I believe has been pretty well subscribed to. So that's been a good program for us as well. And if people want to follow along with what's going on in the town of Redcliff, your town council meetings are accessible through, I think it's Microsoft Teams or then through YouTube. Yes. Yeah yeah yeah yeah, we're on teams. So if I'm out of town for holiday or if somebody else is, then teams in quite often and then it gets posted on YouTube afterwards. Yeah. But people can follow along. Absolutely. Again, you can watch it live. Okay. Or even in person if you like. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Chris, thank you for the visit and look forward to seeing what's happening in the future in the town of Redcliff. Oh, thank you very much for the invitation, Brian.