News
Sports
Weather
Classifieds
Opinions
Obituaries
Special Reports
Archives

Home
About Us
FAQ
Links
Advertising

Carstairs Courier
Didsbury Review
Innisfail Province
Mountain View Gazette
Olds Albertan
Sundre Round Up

Commercial Printing
Great West Newspapers

With current CAO Dale Mather retiring in the next few weeks, the Town of Innisfail welcomed a new face to the office this past Monday, Aug. 9.

Helen Dietz started as the town’s new CAO this week, after spending the past nine years as the CAO in Sylvan Lake.

“I enjoy working with people, municipal council and staff,” Dietz said of her likes for the job. “You can start a project and see the changes that transpire.”

Dietz said she feels municipal government is really a grassroots operation, in the sense that everyone has to come together.

“My background is the financial and administrative side, budgets and bylaws. I’ve done lots of them,” she said.

Before working with Sylvan Lake, Dietz worked in Brooks in the finance and administration department, and spent 10 years before that in Saskatchewan in the municipal administration department.

The next logical step in her career was to take a seat as CAO, she said.

So far, Dietz has sat in on a few Innisfail town council meetings, but didn’t officially start on the job until Monday.

“This is a nice, little community,” she said of Innisfail. “There’s a lot of green space, it’s very inviting. People seem very friendly and open to visit.”

Although she has just arrived in Innisfail, Dietz said she does have a few plans for the future, including a project to update the town’s website – give it a face-lift and make it more user friendly. There will also be a few major milestones coming up, such as elections, the town budget and the master open space and recreation plan.

“I’m jumping right in,” she laughed.

Dietz has two children, one grandchild, and she and her significant other do have plans to move to Innisfail in the near future, she said.