The last Wood Buffalo Recovery Committee (WBRC) meeting is June 8, 2017 at 6 p.m. in the Council Chambers at Jubilee Plaza.
The committee reported directly to council with a mandate to serve the community as the governance entity overseeing the Recovery Task Force (RTF) and was led by three Councillors and six members at large including local business owner Marty Giles.
For Giles the biggest highlight for him as a member of the WBRC was the progress that was on the East Clearwater Highway.
The highway would serve as a secondary route outside of the community.
“A bunch of my staff and my wife had to drive through those flames that you saw on TV,” said Giles, “if that road was built you would have never had people go that way.”
Giles also believes that the new highway could change the face of the community by providing another route for dangerous goods and industrial traffic to be diverted around the urban surface area.
Exactly one year after the fire, on May 3, 2017 the Provincial and Municipal government announced that a feasibility study is underway for the highway with $5 million in funding coming from both governments.
In addition to the highway, Giles would like to be another year behind us with the rebuild, have the Waterways slope stability assessment and flood mitigation plans flushed out before the committee dissembles.
“I thought really that the committee should have went till at least next May with the election in place, so the fact that it’s ending early, I’m really disappointed in that,” Said Giles, “I’m really hoping that Council and administration will take it on but I’m disappointed because we have so many things that are not really where they should be.”
He also wishes that he supported the loans for small businesses at an earlier time.
“There’s issues that are going to come up that we haven’t even thought of yet and now we kind of have to leave. I think when the Mayor of Slave Lake comes up and says this summer is going to be tougher than the last that’s something we have to listen to.”
Moving forward Giles plans to be a much more active delegate at city council than he was before.
He is also planning on growing his business, Northstar Ford.
All recovery related work that was formally overseen by the WBRC will now be in the hands of the Recovery Task Force and be presented directly to City Council.
