The Town of Fort Macleod will recommend to the province forming a co-operative to build the police college.
A co-operative of towns, cities, police forces, Lethbridge College and other stakeholders will attract investors according to a consultant hired by Fort Macleod.
“That’s the kind of facility we can get financed,” Commonwealth Group chief executive officer Peter Abrametz said.
Abrametz and other members of the Commonwealth Group met Nov. 8 with Fort Macleod’s police college liaison committee.
Chief operating officer Reid Lillico said the Commonwealth Group has spent the past four months working on a private-public partnership (P3).
“We have been moving this project forward,” Lillico said.
The province announced in August 2006 it had chosen Fort Macleod as the site of the Alberta Police and Peace Officer Training Centre.
More than four years later the project is not under way so town council hired the Commonwealth Group to develop a P3 proposal.
The police college was planned to provide standard training for 1,400 police and peace officer recruits each year.
The college was also expected to create 75 to 100 permanent jobs in Fort Macleod.
The province received nine responses in January 2008 to its call for expressions of interest in a P3 partnership but did not move forward.
The government’s refusal to help fund the project has left it stalled, so last summer Fort Macleod council spent $25,000 to have Commonwealth develop models for P3 partnerships.
Abrametz told the liaison committee that a stakeholder co-op is supported by Alberta legislation.
“That is the one that should work,” Abrametz said. “We’˜re talking about multiple stakeholders coming together for the purpose of forming a police college.”
Abrametz said the stakeholders would form a board of directors, with policy and governance developed like any other co-op.
“A co-operative, to my mind, is better than a corporation,” Abrametz said. “A corporation is cumbersome.”
The preliminary response from financiers to investing in the co-op is positive.
“If we can’t fund your project then we’re wasting your time and our time, and we’re not interested in doing that,” Abrametz said.
Financiers would invest the money to build the college to be paid back from profits. Dividends would go to the stakeholders only once the mortgage was paid off.
Commonwealth has met with a positive response from potential stakeholders, including police chiefs from around the province.
Former Livingstone-Macleod MLA Dave Coutts, who has been acting as government liaison for Commonwealth, said “no hard and fast” commitments are in place but the police chiefs agreed to stay involved.
Lillico said there has been a positive response to the co-op model from senior government officials and bureaucrats.
“I do think they are pleased to see another approach,” Lillico said.
Lillico said Commonwealth would like to have formal government support in place by the end of March.
If that is forthcoming a detail proposal would be in front of the government by the end of May.
The government’s approval of that plan would be sought by the end of June, with construction to begin in spring 2012.
“We can’t do this without the province,” Mayor Shawn Patience said of a commitment to train recruits at the college.
Lillico said the training centre could be of interest to other provinces, the RCMP, CSIS, Canadian Border Services, oil and gas companies that need to train security people, armies, the Alberta Emergency Management Agency and other groups.
Patience and council will meet with Solicitor General Frank Oberle later this month to pitch the co-op.
