Annexation brings change
Mario Prusina – Times Editor
Former residents of Wheatland County who were affected by the recent annexation will be informed by a letter to contact the Town of Strathmore to have their household trash disposed of.
At the May 18 County Council, councilors made a notion to contact former residents to let them know that they will no longer be allowed to use the countys waste station.
“When you’re in the municipality, you pay a surcharge to use that transfer station and Strathmore is not part of that association,” said Ben Armstrong, Wheatland County Reeve. “Those residents (now part of the town) won’t be paying into that, so they have to contact Strathmore to find out what to do about their garbage.
“Now that they are in the town boundaries, we can no longer collect that surcharge (for them to use the facility). It is now the town’s responsibility.”
According to Armstrong, since the annexation was retroactive to January 1 and residents used the facility up to a few weeks ago, “that is one of the issues we have to discuss with Strathmore when we meet with them.”
Other items that need to be discussed between the two municipalities are emergency services and roads.
“It is what it is,” said Armstrong of the annexation. “I’m not going to say I’m happy with what the government did. We thought we were doing everything they asked us to do – and to us, it doesn’t look like they took anything we said into consideration. They have the final say, so we have to live with what they said.”
Intersection upgrade
A lone tender will be hired to upgrade the intersection of Hwy. 1 and Range Road 243 (in front of the county office).
Construction is slated to begin Aug. 15, and be completed by Sept. 30.
“It’s a bit of a dangerous intersection for big trucks pulling in and pulling out off of the highway,” said Armstrong.
“We’re in negotiations with the province to see if they’ll put more funding into it because it is their highway, but we are going ahead with it because of the safety issue.
Funding needed
The Hope Bridges Group made a presentation to county council for assistance with a $25,000 feasibility study to find a permanent home for the group.
They asked the county for $11,000 towards the study, which will be taken into consideration.
According to Armstrong, several groups have approached the county for funding in recent months.
“Council has to look at all of that and decide just how much of that dollar is available to put into those projects,” he said. “There is a cost to it and people got to remember there is only one tax payer. Every time we put a dollar into it, it has to come from someplace.”