Hutterite colony abandons plans to buy Mather
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2019 (2408 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The people of Mather can return to life as normal, after a local Hutterite colony decided against trying to buy up the community and open a new colony there.
Property owners in the local urban district, about 150 kilometres southeast of Brandon, met with lawyers representing Willow Creek Colony at a meeting Monday night, said Curtis Lees, a member of the local urban district within the Cartwright-Roblin Municipality.
Lees has also been a Mather resident for about 20 years.
After hearing many heartfelt remarks at the meeting, “it was obvious that the town was not for sale,” he said, adding, “It’s sure a relief for me.”
He and other members of the LUD had been busy trying to figure out the logistics of the proposal since they were first approached by the colony about two months ago.
Although he could have gone either way, accepting the colony’s offer to buy his aging home or keeping it, “for me, that wasn’t an issue one way or the other,” Lees said. “I was never going to be the one to hold it back.”
The colony’s plan required 100 per cent of property owers to agree to sell their properties before the colony would have approached the Rural Municipality of Cartwright-Roblin.
Lees said he would like to go out, just as private citizen, and talk to members from the Hutterite colony someday “and just sit down and see how they felt things went or didn’t go.”
Colony manager Tim Hofer said Wednesday he understands why the people of Mather decided not to sell their homes.
“A good part of the population doesn’t want to move out of Mather. They’re very content and happy where they’re living now and they just don’t want to relocate,” Hofer said.
“It was always their decision yes or no. … We’re at peace to leave it the way it is, for now.”
Willow Creek Colony has more than 160 members, Hofer said in an earlier interview with The Brandon Sun, and once a colony reaches those kinds of numbers, they usually try to branch out.
Mather has fewer than 30 residents and is close to the current colony’s hog barn.
Hofer said in that interview Mather is a perfect location for a new colony.
The infrastructure is already there and the village has a community hall and two churches, one of which was converted into a tea house. Hofer said one of the churches could be used as a school.
Hofer said the colony will get through seeding for the next few months before contemplating its next move.
“For now, Mather can go back to normal and so can we, I guess.”
» brobertson@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @BudRobertson4