With the upcoming town hall meeting in Warfield on March 10 to discuss the village’s sustainability as a municipality, Trail Blazers this weeks look back to March 1969.
Trail mayor F.E. “Buddy” DeVito felt amalgamation of the two municipalities was not only inevitable, but necessary.
However, Buddy favoured a regional government approach, making note of the five distinct municipalities in the Greater Trail area.
Addressing the Rotary Club of Trail, Buddy felt the economies of scale that regional service delivery offered was more reasonable, predicting regional garbage collection and disposal, engineering, and firefighting services were on the horizon.
In the March 6, 1969, edition, the paper referenced Buddy’s speech, where he states a Trail-Warfield amalgamation was “a logical step if we are going to talk about Trail offering advantages both to new residents and new businesses. Establishment of Fruitvale and Montrose as a combined area also should be supported by Trail.”
He proposed the eventual, “tying in with Trail would lead to establishment of a regional concept stretching from Castlegar-Kinnaird through Trail and Rossland to Fruitvale and Montrose.”
“What I’m trying to do,” he said, “is relate each community in this Trail area to one another.”
Much talk of the need to create a secondary industry in the area was whirling at the time; Buddy argued those calls neglected Trail’s thriving business district and the burgeoning healthcare industry we all appreciate today.
His speech called for “a program of cleanup and renovation that would contribute to the attractiveness of our shopping area,” and noted that investments towards ongoing hospital expansion projects would prove important for drawing people here.
It seems we’ve been having the same conversations for decades!
The Village of Warfield’s website provides ample information pertaining to their Municipal Sustainability Advisory Committee and the completed work to date, including a fact-filled newsletter outlining governing options for the future.
What do you think of Buddy’s calls for amalgamation 56 years ago?
Was he ahead of his time?
