Town Council meeting, December 12, 2011

Pincher Creek's Town Council held a public meeting on the evening of Monday, December 12.  No delegations appeared before Council at their last public meeting of the year.

School Bus Request
Council accepted as information, with no debate, a Request For Decision regarding an in-town school bus request.  An estimate by the Location Manager for First Student Bus indicated it would cost between $450 and $650 per student to transport in-town students to school, a cost that would be borne by the users of this service.
Peigan Busing was contacted in November of this year and declined to provide this service.   At present Schools oversee busing needs for their students, and the Town is responsible for roads, walking paths, crosswalks like the one recently installed near the Sleepy Hollow Campground, and other traffic infrastructure under their jurisdiction.   The document in question concludes with the comment that "The Administration will continue to be receptive to any and all ideas brought forward in the spirit of some type of resolution."

Fee Structure Bylaw
Fee Structure Bylaw #1584-07 passed second reading, and third and final reading.  This bylaw affects the prices set for everything from returned cheques, souvenirs, maps, access fees for parks and sports facilities, pool charges, dog licences, water rates, and any other goods and services the Town supplies.  The adjusted rates take effect January 1, 2012 except for arena fees, which do not take effect until September 2012 to allow groups that have avoid causing hardships for groups that have already collected their registration fees for the season.

Business Licence Bylaw
Business Licence Bylaw #1550-11 passed third and final reading, which is an amendment to an already existing bylaw covering minor wording changes for clarification and sets annual fees for businesses purchasing a regional business licence from the Alberta Southwest Regional Alliance at $80 a year, which fee was formerly $40 a year,  and sets a price for garage sales at $10 per sale.

2012 Operating and Capital Budgets
The 2012 Operating and Capital budgets was passed unanimously. The Town is to hold a public budget information session early in 2012.

2012 Budget Highlights:

• 2.5% tax increase overall for residential and non-residential properties.
• $9,786,694 revenue 
• $10,855,604 expenditures
• $1,069,002 amortized expenditures added to expenditures as required by law added back to revenue to reflect actual "cash" surplus
• For a total budgeted cash surplus of $92

Big-Ticket expenses in the 2012 Budget:

• General Municipal services - $1,335,737 ($87,961 increase compared to 2011 budget)
• General administration - $739,218 ($38,639 decrease compared to 2011 budget)
• Water services - $1,293,105 ($177,265 decrease compared to 2011 budget)
• Roads, Streets, Walks, Lighting - $972, 580 (slight increase)
• Police protection - $525,150 (slight increase)
• Garbage collection and disposal - $505,490 ($78,316 decrease compared to 2011 budget)
• Pool - $1,006,200 ($73,529 decrease compared to 2011 budget)
• Arena - $$492,418 ($7,223 increase compared to 2011 budget)

Water and Sewer Utility Bylaw (Water rates to increase)
Council gave first reading, second reading, and third and final reading to the Water and Sewer Amendment Bylaw #1607-09, increasing water rates.

Water rate increases:

• User Pay fee increased from $0.99/cum to $1.12/cum
• Meter size rates to increase by $3.00 for both residential and commercial
• Residential (non meter) minimum bi-monthly charge raised by $6.00 ($3.00 a month)
• Residential hook-up fee raised from $100.00 to $125.00 to reflect the current average bi-monthly bill

Sarcoidosis Awareness Month
Council agreed to a request to declare April 2012 as Sarcoidosis Awareness Month.  Sarcoidosis is "a potentially fatal inflammatory disease that can appear in almost any organ in the body... The cause of Sarcoidosis is not known, and there is no cure."

Committee of the Whole Procedures Expansion discussed
Town Council has declared itself reluctant to reduce Council meetings from twice a month to once, as suggested by Archie Grover's recommendations.  However, Council is considering increasing the resolution making powers of the Committee of the Whole (COTW).   Councillors Wayne Oliver and Roy Smyth expressed concerns, which included the inability of some Councillors to attend the COTW meetings due to work-related obligations.  Councillor Sahra Nodge said she saw this particular request for a decision as a first step towards developing a policy, rather than defining one.

Essentially this adjustment to the present power structure would possibly help unify the Municipal District of Pincher Creek and the Town of Pincher Creek in terms of making binding decisions that affect both jurisdictions.

"There's no guarantee that the next councillors around the table would be as amiable as we are to work together as we are," cautioned Councillor Oliver.  "We have to have a structured thing of what decision (the COTW) can or cannot make."

Council voted unanimously to work on developing such a policy.

Public Forum ("Coffee with Council")
As a result of discussions at the December 1 Committee of the Whole Meeting, Council decided after some debate to try offering half an hour of informal meeting time for residents to offer them an opportunity to discuss topics of interest and concern, prior to the regularly scheduled Council meetings.   It was suggested that this kind of informal time could replace unscheduled delegations, allowing citizens to air concerns and giving Council a chance to add items to the agenda if it was deemed necessary due to concerns that required its immediate attention.  CAO Laurie Wilgosh suggested this forum be put into effect after the new procedural bylaw is adopted, which may include the removal of unscheduled delegations as suggested in the Grover report, giving Council time to advertise the initiative to the public.  This suggestion was agreed to by Council.

The next scheduled meeting of the Pincher Creek Town Council is Monday, January 9, at 6:00pm.