ATHABASCA – A local religious leader turned to sarcasm — and Facebook — to protest her displeasure with the Town of Athabasca’s recently passed community standards bylaw.
Monica Rosborough, Athabasca’s United Church minister, took aim at the legislation which she felt is too broad and risks over-enforcement down the road.
“I’m a little confused on whether or not we’ve had a huge problem with catapults in Athabasca?” asked Rosborough during a Nov. 19 presentation to councillors. “I’ve phoned a couple of different people and I didn’t get any answers.
“I’m just wondering because, does that include trebuchets? Is there a height distance? When I think catapults, I think castle storming and there wasn’t a sense that there was a huge issue with catapults.”
Athabasca doesn’t have an issue with medieval siege weaponry. Instead, Rosborough was bringing attention to the danger overly-broad legislation can have for a community.
“As someone who worked in a city councillors office and as a city clerk, we had incidents where the bylaw officers were being used as a tool for bullying in neighbourhood disputes,” said Rosborough.
The bylaw, which passed Nov. 5, and replaced four other bylaws, covers a wide variety of infractions, and standardizes fines based on the offence count. First offenders risk a $250 fine, which will increase to $500 for a second offence, and a mandatory court date for the third offence within a year.
Besides outlawing catapults, it prohibits posting signs, posters, pictures and more on town property without written consent, it gives the town peace officer the right to ask any group of three or more individuals to disperse if the officer believes the group may disturb the peace, and it allows individuals to be fined if they cause injury to a sidewalk.
A clause stating, “no person shall paint, chalk, stencil or mark any advertisement, legend, or sign of any kind whatsoever on any town-owned lane, roadway, sidewalk or pavement unless authorized,” was also the subject of Rosborough’s rhetoric, with the minister asking if eight-year-olds were at risk of getting a $250 fine for playing hopscotch.
“In any of these bylaws, there has to be a discretionary part of it, and there has to be a common sense part of it as well,” said Mayor Rob Balay.
“It doesn’t mean you can’t use ice melt, but if someone were to use something like diesel or gas, you would have something in place to enforce or stop that.”
Athabasca doesn’t have a neutrality bylaw like was recently passed in Westlock and was voted on in Barrhead Dec. 2. While the community standards bylaw is not a neutrality bylaw, it does have aspects that could help the town navigate potential neutrality issues.
Rosborough didn’t ask about anything Pride related, something that councillors remarked on after her presentation. Each year during Pride month, the church’s youth group has historically drawn on the sidewalk and front of the church in chalk, and will need to get authorization in 2025 or risk a $250 fine.
“Why isn’t the bylaw worded in that there’s no obscenity and no pornography specifically, instead of just saying chalk?” asked Rosborough. “Why isn’t it targeted more intentionally to what the real issue is?
‘We think that common sense will prevail, but there are times when it doesn’t.”
