Potable water agreement extended

Times Reporter  

 

Council has agreed to an extension of the interim amending agreement to the potable water servicing agreement. The interim potable water agreement between the City of Calgary, Strathmore and Chestermere expired June of 2013. Since that time, Calgary has been working on amending the Master Servicing Agreement between all of the regionally serviced communities, which include Airdrie and Cochrane. The city has also been working on their cost of servicing study, which sets some of the rates for water and sewer. The city asked regional partners if they would be okay with extending the interim agreement as it sits for now until the end of 2014. Mayor Michael Ell questioned if the cost will be going up dramatically and if the budget will need to be reviewed, something Director of Operations and Engineering Jesse Parker was unable to answer.  Parker said some of the servicing study intent is to also help with some of the growth charges and other factors to help keep costs a little more stable.

 

Policy changes

The Family Centre and Civic Centre policies were brought forward for a bit of an update. Tracy Simpson, communications and events officer, said the biggest change to the Family Centre policy is the out-of-town user fee schedule. The Family Centre has a user group-based system. An association, for example minor hockey, is the user. A fee would be charged to the association and afterwards town staff would have to contact each individual family from that association for the additional out-of-town user fee. The change outlined in the policy is that now the associations will provide a list of their users, it will be determined how many are out of town users, and then that fee is billed to the association who will then be responsible for paying it. 

The Family Centre is running at approximately 96 per cent capacity. There is very little down time and the town is trying to accommodate that. 

Councillor Denise Peterson was opposed to the motion made to accept the changes made to the Family Centre policy. All of council were in favour of the Civic Centre proposed changes which were mainly language and position updates.

 

Committees

A Downtown Design Review Committee was proposed this past November. The committee will make recommendations to the town and council regarding mix of land uses, public art, site landscaping, parking reductions and more. At the Jan. 22 meeting council appointed four members of the public to the committee: Sharon Sundgaard, Telisa Tebbutt, Glen Freeland and Robert Breitwieser. The committee also includes three town staff members- Linda Nelson, Pat Maloney and Betty Ann Fountain – and councillors Bob Sobol and Brad Walls. 

Margie Lavoy, Earl Best and Yvonne Shaw have been appointed to a one-year term with the Names Advisory Committee.

 

Appeal board 

The Subdivision and Development Appeal board hasn’t been utilized yet, but it was time to appoint new members on Jan. 22. The board must include a minimum of seven members of the public. The term of office for each member will be a period that won’t exceed three years, with the terms being staggered. A member may be re-appointed to a maximum of six consecutive years of service. Debbie Enslen, Ian Anderson and Randy Tiller are all serving their second term. First term members are Beth MacDonald, Jason Montgomery, Alan Auger, Kevin Gibbons and Hailey Poirier. 

 

Peace officer MOU

Every five years a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) must be renewed between the Peace Officers and the Town of Strathmore. The intent of the MOU is to provide a platform to enhance interagency working relationships and to enhance community safety. Chief Administrative Officer for the town Dwight Stanford said he had administration compare the old one MOU to the new one. The only big difference found was when Peace Officers need to get information from license plates they now have to go through the Alberta Sheriffs, whereas in the past they were able to request the information from the RCMP.

This is something that is happening in all towns, and is not unique to Strathmore said Stanford. A motion was made and approved by council to accept and sign the MOU.