Proposed MCC Transition to Claystone Waste
The Beaver Regional Waste Management Services Commission, also known as Beaver Municipal Solutions was created in 1992 and has a mandate to provide waste management services to the residents and businesses of its shareholder municipalities which include Beaver County, the Village of Ryley, the Village of Holden, the Town of Tofield and the Town of Viking, as well as customers located outside of Beaver County.
Beaver Municipal Solutions and its member municipalities are proposing to transition from a regional services commission to a municipally controlled corporation (MCC). This corporate reorganization is meant to provide increased community benefit to residents, protect and promote member municipality sustainability, and enable future waste management operations to be conducted in a more flexible manner. Along with the transition to a more flexible corporate structure, Beaver Municipal Solutions is proposing to rebrand as Claystone Waste Ltd.
The current laws for a regional services commission mean that Beaver Municipal Solutions must receive approval from the Government of Alberta to share its profits with its municipal members or sell any asset, even a small one, such as a used truck. Regional services commissions are designed to allow Alberta municipalities to work together to deliver municipal services on a cost-recovery basis. They are not meant to generate profits and dividends for municipalities. These legal limitations can be cumbersome and do not guarantee that member municipalities and the wider community can benefit from the operations and profits of the landfill.
Municipally controlled corporations on the other hand, are enabled to share profits to their municipal shareholders without government approval. Municipally controlled corporations are also run more like a private sector business and are permitted to seek out revenue-generating opportunities outside their municipal and provincial boundaries, while regional services commissions are not.
The next steps for public consultation are the public hearings to be held by each of the municipal member council in June 2020. Information on how to make a submission, present to council or provide feedback on the Claystone Waste proposal will be available on each municipalities website.
Several draft legal agreements and documents, including the Beaver Municipal Solutions/Claystone Waste business plan, have been finalized and are posted on Beaver Municipal Solutions’ website. Check out www.beavermunicipal.com to read these agreements and their summaries.
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