Pivot field solutions being sought

Times Reporter  

 

Chief Administrative Officer for the Town of Strathmore Dwight Stanford told council that administration may have come up with a possibility on what to do with the pivot fields.  

“For example, if somebody bought all the pivot field, the 582 acres….if they purchased it then we would purchase some back if they didn’t need all that land,” said Stanford. 

With that in mind though, before you can sell property, you have to have a formal appraisal. An assessor has given some estimated numbers, but Stanford asked for the authority to hire an accredited appraiser to give a written report with details on how much the land is worth. Once administration finds that out, Stanford said, the town will then advertise and see if there are any businesses that may be interested in purchasing the land.  Councillor Peterson questioned whether there might be difficulty with being viewed as not being at arm’s length regarding the matter, but Stanford said he had discussed the matter with Hugh Ham, legal counsel for the town, who said he didn’t believe that would be a problem. 

Council voted in favour of taking steps to obtaining an accredited appraiser. 

 

Alberta’s Promise 

Steve Marshman, a council member with Alberta’s Promise and owner of Rocking Horse Energy, made a brief presentation to council further explaining what Alberta’s Promise is and what they do. Two members from the group had made a presentation to town council at the Feb. 5 council meeting regarding their organization. At the time Councillor Denise Peterson had been looking for more answers. Marshman was able to satisfy some of Peterson’s questions and a motion was made, and unanimously accepted, for the town to become a partner with Alberta’s Promise. 

 

Aerial Ortho photo 

collection 

Wheatland County asked the Town of Strathmore and Rocky View County to participate in a regional collaboration grant program to collect aerial photography throughout the region. 

“We use orthophotos as our GIS program as well. We have an Arc GIS program that we use and then everyone in administration has access to what we call ARC reader which is read-only capability to access the aerial photo and other information within the GIS system,” said Jesse Parker, director of operations and engineering for the town. The cost to the town is estimated at $2,000 for the aerial photo, but Parker said it is a conservative estimate relative to the overall costs. Council agreed to authorize the Town of Strathmore to participate in the application for the ortho photo project. 

 

Fraud prevention 

A letter received by the town from the Alberta Community Crime Prevention Association requested that March be declared as Fraud Prevention Month. The letter also said to ask the community on Feb. 28 at 10 a.m. to log onto their favourite social networking site, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or a work website and change your password.  

Then as a show of support for fraud prevention month they invite you to tweet: I pledge to regularly change my passwords in support of ACCPA’s fraud prevention month #abfraud2014 @ABcrimeprevent @(yourtwitteraddress).