ESTERHAZY — The village of Yarbo has asked the town of Esterhazy if the town would consider making Yarbo part of the town.
The New Year was supposed to mark a new beginning for the community of Yarbo. After months of discussions, the community was set to dissolve its village status and become part of the RM of Langenburg. When the calendar flipped over to Jan. 1, 2025, that change didn’t occur — leaving residents wondering what happens next.
“Please be advised that the restructuring of the village into the RM of Langenburg has been put on hold,” noted Yarbo’s administrator, Maggie Rowland, in an online post to village residents on Jan. 2. “Everything will remain as is for the time being until further notice. Thank you for your patience in this matter.”
When a village dissolves, it’s usually into the rural municipality surrounding the community, becoming an unorganized hamlet or special services area within the RM. The province stops Municipal Revenue Share payments to that village, but an annual grant is made under the Communities in Transition Fund. This money then goes to the RM taking on the dissolved village for the next 10 years.
Currently, the Village of Yarbo is in good financial shape — it owes nothing and has a healthy bank account plus investments.
“The only reason we want to dissolve is we can’t get anybody to run for council, and I want to quit,” explained Rowland, who has been in the role of Administrator for nine years. “It’s only one day a week, so I don’t know where they’re going to find an administrator.”
With the RM of Langenburg not planning to take Yarbo on, the Town of Esterhazy has been asked if they would consider restructuring to include the village.
“Yarbo would then become the Town of Esterhazy,” explained Tammy MacDonald, CAO with the Town of Esterhazy during a town council meeting on Feb. 13. “They would pay the same taxes that our ratepayers do. They do have their water system, so they would pay for their water. To proceed with this, what the provincial government would need to know is if the Town of Esterhazy is interested in entering into a reconstruction agreement with the Village of Yarbo.”
A public hearing would be required before any action is taken, but MacDonald also noted some steps would need to be taken toward an agreement. A voluntary restructuring agreement would include items such as the structure and name of the new municipality, where the municipal office will be, assets and liabilities, what integration of administration and other staff would look like, consolidating financial and physical operations, voting structure, and establishing service areas.
“Before we do the public hearing, though, we would have to work out what that agreement would look like, and that agreement would have to be solid,” she said, adding that when the public hearing happens, full disclosure on what such an agreement would entail could be available. She also noted that according to the Municipalities Act, the Village of Yarbo would be responsible for notifying its ratepayers.
Currently, the Town of Esterhazy would not receive any funding like the RM of Langenburg would in the restructuring process—not because the government doesn’t want to do so, the scenario just hasn’t been one that’s ever happened before. In this case, Yarbo and Esterhazy are just over 12 km away from each other instead of having boundaries that overlap or touch.
“The way it’s written right now, is because it’s called a merger, or an inclusion; two pieces of land that are side by side, and they’re working together,” MacDonald explained. “We’re not—we’re asking for a restructure because we’re not joined by land. So it’s technical wording right now, basically it has to be re-worded. Instead of ‘merger’ or ‘inclusion’, we’re asking for a restructuring.”
Before any decision at the municipal level is entertained, council agreed that a public meeting needs to happen.
“This is a decision that we should not be making in this room, but we should be making as a community,” Mayor Randy Bot said. “This just means that we’re going to explore restructuring Yarbo into the Town of Esterhazy. So this is no commitment right now, this is to explore.”
Mayor Bot ultimately called for a motion that council explore restructuring Yarbo with the Town of Esterhazy under Section 53 of the Municipalities Act, which was made by Councillor Bryant Campbell and supported by the rest of council.
While municipal councils can initiate merging or restructuring, the Municipalities Act also allows for voters of a municipality to petition for a referendum to be held as to whether or not their municipal council should apply for such an action.
According to the 2021 federal census numbers, there are 48 residents in Yarbo.
Group meeting with provincial government to talk about hospital
Mayor Bot updated council that meetings have continued regarding the hospital, including a session with government officials this week.
“We’re getting all the funds together into one account, and then we’re going to start pushing forward with everything,” he said. “That will give us the chance to know exactly what we have and exactly where we are, and then we’ll be meeting with the government on the 20th of February.”
Streamlining all fundraising dollars into one place was seen as a practical and transparent move.
“We had Esterhazy & District Golf raising money for the new facility, and then we had the St. Anthony’s fund as well,” Mayor Bot explained. “So we spoke to them and requested that we put all the monies into one account through the town of Esterhazy, so then we can start calling in all the commitments that we have from our end and we can really get a feel for where we’re at and what we have.”
The meeting with provincial Health Minister Lori Carr will also help clarify what still needs to happen in the grand scheme of things.
“Just to get a feel of some more organization of what exactly we need, what exactly our portion is, just so we have a better idea of where we’re at, where we need to be,” said Mayor Bot. “So, just getting those organization things intact.”
Mayor Bot also noted that Lawrence Berthelet, Mosaic’s VP of Operations - Potash is co-chairing the New Hospital Steering Committee.
“He has a lot of experience in this kind of thing, and together, we’re going to push ahead and try to get this thing moving,” he said. “Hopefully, sooner than later, we can get an announcement, but right now, we’re still in that planning stage of where we need to be.”
WTP contract awarded
The electrical contract for Esterhazy’s new water treatment plant was awarded to Synergy Electric. The Town received four bids with Synergy’s offer the most attractive to the Water Treatment Plant Committee.
“They’re a very recognized contractor in the province,” said Councillor Dana Paidel, who is a member of that committee and brought the item before council.
Councillor William Gale was also part of the meeting where Synergy was selected and had similar comments.
“I felt like Synergy was the right choice budget-wise, and also with how reputable they were working with the province,” he said.
Paidel made the motion to award Contract 9 to Synergy Energy for $1.4 million, which was carried by council.
Library staff wages
An increase in wages for local library staff was discussed, something that hasn’t changed locally for some time. Sarah Slotsve, Chair of the Esterhazy Branch Library Board, was on hand to answer questions that council had regarding the proposed increase.
“The increase to this municipality is roughly the same percentage as it is to all the municipalities in our region,” she explained. “So all the municipalities voted on a new levy rate that was an approximately 12 per cent increase to what they’ve been paying. The increase to Esterhazy is that same 12 per cent, so you’re not being asked for anything that any other municipality isn’t also being asked for. Part of the reason that that ask is so high—12 per cent is a lot—is because the provincial funding for our region hasn’t increased significantly since 2017.”
On top of the new levy rate, a wage increase was also sought that would work out to two dollars per hour over minimum wage.
“The reason we came to council in the first place with this back in 2018 is because we had quite a bit of turnover with our librarian—minimum wage is not really competitive in this area, because we have so many industry drivers,” Slotsve explained.
A wide variety of programming is also available at the Esterhazy Public Library including the prenatal care circle, story time for children, the teen hangout, Lego program, Dungeons and Dragons session and book club.
“What we’ve tried to do is cover a broad range of ages and ability levels,” Slotsve said.
The item was tabled to the in-camera session for further discussion, with a lesser wage increase settled on.
“We have decided to top up the wages for the library,” Mayor Bot confirmed. “The head librarian will get $1 and the assistant librarian will get 50 cents. So it’s a little bit different from what was presented, and then we locked it in for one year, and we’re going to reassess again—hopefully a little bit earlier next year.”
Being so close to budget planning, the timing of the request was somewhat of a factor.
“We’ve asked them to bring it forward October of next year so we have ample time to plan it,” Mayor Bot said. “Our library is doing great things, that’s why it’s really easy to support them, because they are going over and above to bring things to everybody.”
