The Cochrane & District Agricultural Society (CDAS) said the board supports Rocky View County's (RVC) decision to accept requests-for-proposals (RFP) to look for potential buyers for the Cochrane ag lands.
The Cochrane & District Agricultural Society (CDAS) said the board supports Rocky View County's (RVC) decision to accept requests-for-proposals (RFP) to look for potential buyers for the Cochrane ag lands.
“CDAS does support the RFP process - this is necessary to move forward and see our future, ” said interim CDAS president Justin Burwash.
As previously reported by the Eagle, RVC council passed a motion, at the Jan. 27 RVC meeting, to allow for interested buyers to submit proposals to purchase the land currently occupied by CDAS.
CDAS currently has nine years left on the lease with RVC and had requested a 50-year lease extension but was denied and the motion to accept RFP was approved. Since the decision to allow the RFP, there have been several discussions around the potential future of the ag lands, upsetting some ag land user group members and other concerned residents.
After two months of discussions, including several county meetings with RVC councillors, CDAS finally spoke out at a recent information session at the ag society to state their position on the issue.
Burwash said the society would support the sale of the lands if three conditions were met:
There was a replacement property secured of 120 acres or more.
The new location of the land would be in relative proximity to the current site and be able to continue serving users and user groups.
And sufficient funds were in place to replace and rebuild all of the current ag society facilities on another piece of land.
“We do not have overconfidence in the situation - there are answers that are not out there yet, ” Burwash said.
Approximately 80 people attended the meeting, including MLA Cam Westhead, RVC councillors Bruce Kendall, Greg Boehlke, and Eric Lowther, Cochrane Mayor Ivan Brooker and town Coun. Morgan Nagel.
Mediators Tim Carson, executive director, and Lisa Hardy, chief administrative officer of the Alberta Association of Agricultural Societies, helped CDAS board members take questions from the crowd.
CDAS board members explained the RFP was a way to gather information as opposed to an official bid and continued to explain to the crowd that even if this were an official bidding process, CDAS would not have sufficient funding to bid for the property. A concerned citizen in the crowd suggested to fundraise the monies to secure the site, the crowd cheered in support.
“At this point we are working with everyone here to gather information - we are hoping and we have been told that we will have a seat at the table (for the final decision). We support the process but we don't know if we will support the sale, ” said CDAS board member Joel Jones.
An issue of CDAS staying on the current land is the lack of water and sewer services, board members explained - and despite public perception neither CDAS nor the Town of Cochrane owns the land, the land is owned by RVC.
“The ag society does have a lease and we have to respect that lease - we want to come out at the end of the day with a stronger ag society, ” Burwash said.
Concerned residents voiced their frustrations with the passive language used back and forth of “hopeful ” and “assuming. ”
Jones said a lot of the public's concerns were “similar ” to the CDAS board members' concerns.
“We are trying to make the best decision for the ag society. We want to continue to grow and we want to be here 40 to 50 years in the future - we are working towards the same thing, ” Burwash said.
Deadline for the RVC request for proposals is June 2.
