Whichever way the election turns out, Jasper mayoral candidate Paul Butler says his single regret will be that he will no longer will have the opportunity to work alongside fellow 2021 candidate Richard Ireland. 

If Butler wins more votes than Ireland, Jasper will have a new mayor for the first time since the municipality was created in 2001. If Butler receives less votes than the six-term incumbent, he’ll be on the outside looking in after having completed a single term as a councillor. Either way, he and Ireland won’t be across the council table from each other.

“That inevitability is something I’m simply going to have to accept,” he said. 

Why accept that inevitability when, as a councillor who was arguably the main discussion leader on many issues of impact in Jasper, his reelection was virtually guaranteed? 

In short, Butler thinks Jasper Municipal Council’s decision-making process needs an overhaul.

“The mayor, more than anyone else, guides and officiates the decision-making process,” Butler said. “It’s fair to say I think that process needs an update.”

While in his view, council’s processes and procedures need to be “refreshed,” the perennial issue of negotiating Jasper’s land use and planning autonomy needs to be reanimated, Butler said. His idea, as outlined in the October 4 online Mayoral forum, would be to strike a special committee (the first appointee onto which should be Richard Ireland, he said).

“Frankly, we’ve been having he conversation since the year we attained our municipal autonomy,” Butler said. “We are exactly where we are today, where we were 20 years ago.”

The status quo isn’t good enough right now, Butler said, and one of his main contentions with the way council operates currently is the lack of community engagement. His campaign literature declares residents should expect their input to be heard, not ignored.

“I’ve seen numerous letters come in asking Mayor and Council to consider an issue…but some are completely ignored.”

By The Jasper Local’s count, however, an unprecedented 27 letters came in during the 2020 budget discussions, all of which asked council not to make the drastic cuts which Butler (with the help of councillors Damota, Journault, Kelleher-Empey and McGrath) voted through. Were those letters not ignored?

“Council at that time made the decisions that were necessary with the understanding of the situation we had at the time. Looking back, the community is in better financial position today because of the decisions that were made,” Butler responded.

That’s one perspective. Another is that two years of zero-per cent budgets have not put adequate resources into Jasper’s decrepit infrastructure. A 2016 asset management study recommended town managers should be putting away nearly $4.5 million each year to ward off infrastructure deficit. COVID happened, yes, but even before the pandemic those savings weren’t being accrued. Butler said he wants to lead the conversation on how those revenues will be raised. It will take creativity, he is assured.

“There should be no mistake that [raising revenue] is one of the two primary goals of Paid Parking,” he said.

Moreover, Butler said that how the town charges for utilities has to be re-examined. 

“There’s been broad consensus that was haven’t been doing as good of a job as we should be doing in billing for utilities,” he suggested. 

In January of 2021, council passed a utility bylaw with minimal increases. Some councillors thought that the municipality should charge more for the provision of water, sewer, solid waste and recycling services, but council heard from the Hotel Association, who through representative (and now 2021 municipal councillor candidate) Ralph Melnyk, asked for leniency when it came to raising utility fees. Whether it was because of that lobbying or not, council decided not to pursue steep hikes. At the time, Butler was instrumental in guiding the conversation.

It wouldn’t be the last time in 2021 the Hotel Association lobbied for a break. In the spring, Melnyk, along with board members of the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce, requested that council look at lowering the commercial/residential tax rate split. Butler, who said he had argued for three years that council had a responsibility to address the tax ratio, called the Hotel Association’s arguments “very persuasive and passionate.” In the June 1 council meeting, he moved the taxation rates bylaw be amended to reflect the 5:1 ratio the Hotel Association was asking for. Councillors Damota, Kelleher-Empey and Journault supported the motion. 

Butler’s insistence that the tax ratio be addressed as recommended in Jasper’s Community Sustainability Plan exemplifies his attitude toward following proper procedure. A self-described policy enthusiast, Butler says if council doesn’t have a foundation and a framework of policy it’s impossible to make good decisions. His science background (he received a BSc in biology at the UofA) comes to the forefront when preparing for discussion and researching council policy matters, he said. His strong debating skills and attention to detail make him the right candidate to give the MOJ’s policies the proper tune-up, he added.

“The point is not that I like policy, the point is it’s just so important,” he said. 

Perhaps the most important issue facing Jasperites, however, is the issue of affordable housing. Butler, who has been the chairperson of the Jasper Community Housing Corporation since former Jasper CAO Mark Fercho left a year ago, and who has put in a significant amount of time investigating higher-level government partnerships, facilitating staff and seniors housing planning and generally taken the lead on the portfolio on council’s behalf, said building housing that qualifies as affordable is hard to do.

“Affordable housing, by which I mean housing that is rent-controlled, can really only happen with public funding,” he said. 

Through the JCHC, Jasper has an application in to the province for an $8 million grant. If obtained, the funding could move forward a proposed $12 million affordable housing project. Butler says that dream being realized outweighs any political ambitions he might have. 

“If we get that grant, that will be a day of happiness far beyond what potentially being elected as mayor would be.”

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com