Bearspaw feeder main<\/a> \u2014 its first of two failures in less than two years.<\/p>\n\u201cThis oversight board is an essential part of us showing Calgarians that we are taking accountability and that we\u2019re following up the recommendations with the needed actions to ensure that something like this never, ever happens again here in the city,\u201d Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n
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City administration has recommended a $70,000 annual retainer for the board\u2019s future chair, as well as $30,000 for each board member.<\/p>\n
Board members will receive an additional fee of $1,000 per meeting, when the number of meetings exceeds eight per year.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhase 2 of Calgary\u2019s Bearspaw feeder main construction underway\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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According to city administration, the compensation framework was developed with firm WTW using examples from other utilities across the country.<\/p>\n
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The compensation is \u201cmaterially higher\u201d due to the \u201cspecialized natures of the roles,\u201d and size of the workload expected over the first two years of the board, administration said.<\/p>\n
Farkas called the compensation \u201crelatively nominal,\u201d and said he can tell Calgarians that it is \u201cmoney well spent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the experienced professionals that we\u2019re going to be recruiting, they would be making 10 times, 20 times, 30 times more in the private sector if they were providing the equivalent advice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf we want the best folks, we have be prepared to pay for that expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n
City administration warned the compensation may not be seen as sufficient for the \u201cpublic profile of the role,\u201d with a limited pool of candidates with the water utility expertise required.<\/p>\n
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Some Calgarians, however, have questions about the compensation framework for the future board.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeems like a bit much, especially for a public service,\u201d Andrew McMurray told Global News.<\/p>\n
Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot had similar concerns with the pay. He was one of three councillors who voted against administration\u2019s recommendations when they were in front of committee last week.<\/p>\n
Chabot pointed to Calgarians who serve on other city boards and commissions on a mostly volunteer basis, with a stipend for meeting related expenses getting approved just this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have so many people who put forward their names to sit on different committees, people with professional designations in so many different fields,\u201d Chabot said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey used to do all of their work on our committees on a volunteer basis. We only just started paying them this term and it\u2019s a very modest honorarium. This goes far beyond modest.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Farkas pointed to the fast-tracked construction of a replacement pipe for the Bearspaw feeder main, as well as the internal governance changes to water services, as rationale that a board of experts will be required.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ll be able to provide the confidence to Calgarians that this is being done properly,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n
A board chair for the oversight board is expected to be appointed sometime in July, according to a timeline from city administration, with a goal of establishing the board before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Compensation for future members of the city\u2019s water oversight board is \u201cmoney well spent,\u201d according to Calgary\u2019s mayor,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[165678,49,2798,71388,162170,48,24156],"class_list":["post-665950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-bearspaw-feeder-main","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-city-council","tag-calgary-water-main-break","tag-canada","tag-city-of-calgary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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