June 18 G+P and Council meeting.

G+P meeting

Some interesting delegations showed up for the afternoon meeting.

Leone Stacheruk with a large group of Swimming Pool Society members appeared before council to present their position on changes at the Swimming pool. The Society felt that they had not been treated fairly over the last year, that they were not interested in running the pool on a daily basis only that they wished to hire the manager and have input into the pool budget as they had for the previous twenty years. Communications between administration and the society appeared to be terrible at the best but Council assured them that they would take their comments in consideration at the council meeting that night. Then the Mayor went on to talk about how change is difficult but this is what the people of the Crowsnest Pass voted for and this is what they are getting.

Mrs Stacheruk at the closing of her presentation told Mayor Decoux to keep in mind not “all changes are not for the better”   

Val Brekenridge then gave a presentation on behalf of the Hillcrest Memorial Mine Committee, next year is the 100^th anniversary of the Hillcrest Mine Disaster, 236 men died in what a lot of people do not realize was Canada’s largest single mine disaster. The group is going to be putting on a memorial from June 19-21 2014, inviting dignitaries from the Governor General, Prime Minister and down. They need $150,000 to back stop this event and are seeking support from various levels of government, corporate sponsors, and anybody else that is willing.

Penny Warris gave an update on the Rum Runner Days event coming up the third weekend of July all of the information is available at http://rumrunnerdays.com/

Next came topics of discussion starting with the anti-bullying bylaw which Councillor Saje had brought forward previously with a draft anticipated by this time the Director for this area Mr Headrick informed council that there was a lot more research to be done in this area. He also informed council that an offer will be made on Friday to an individual with a wealth of knowledge in the issue of bullying to take on the FCSS coordinator position which would help in moving the bylaw forward.

At this point, I had to leave due to a prior commitment.

Council Meeting

I was surprised to arrive at council chambers to a packed house of concerned taxpayers.

Picking up my agenda I was surprised to see the Pass Pool authority item on the agenda this council has taken a consistent position for almost three years that an item dealt with at G+P does not come to council on the same day. So that council can have time to digest the information presented and have time to formulate an opinion to have an intelligent debate

I was also surprised by the absence on the agenda of an update on the hotel, nothing from Medican, Group Vachon or the Penrose group of companies. Maybe the CAO was going to present a verbal update.

The meeting began with a public hearing on the new land use bylaw most of the speakers were opposed to the bylaw, over concerns regarding the historical down town areas and issues with the signage portion. At this point in a very rare move the Mayor attempted to persuade council to move the agenda around to bring forth the 2 + 3 reading. In another rare move Council disagreed with the Mayor and left the agenda the way it was written.

CAO Report Mr Thompson informed us of a number of issues, the Workplace Evaluation will be complete by the end of the month, Grading of roads after delays caused by rain are now finally complete, and street sweeping should be completed by June 28^th.

RC Strategies will be the consultant used to do the Recreation Feasibility study. We were also informed that the EDO as met with a large number of groups and will be continuing that process to get herself familiar with the community.

Dave Morrison the ski hill manager then gave a very in depth report on the operations of the ski hill apparently both usage and revenue were up this season despite a late start, good news for a very important part of our recreation program.

Pass Pool Authority, council in a rare move apparently had enough time to digest the information they were provided earlier in the day and voted to remove the Pass Pool authority. Strangely they used the Ski Hill Society has an example of what they wanted to achieve at the pool. A board that provides the municipality it’s budget for municipal approval, hires the Manager who in turn hires the employee’s. The board takes no active role in the day to day operation of the facility and all expenditures and revenues go through the municipality. Unless I completely miss understood, the pool society it was exactly what they have done for twenty some years and what they wished to continue doing. During the debate Councilor Saje even made the point we do not need to get rid of the authority just agree on the terms of reference. Even so council voted 6-1 to get rid of the board (Councilor Gallant was opposed I tried to catch his reason for voting against but never heard one, the cynical part of me thought he might be playing politics but that’s just my opinion)

2013 Development Permitting and Business Licensing Report the Mayor was very excited about numbers being up but did not share a lot with us. (Maybe this is the beginning of the economic boom)

Subdivision extension approval was given to Wolfgang Weinrich on his 50 unit RV park.

Bylaw 868 Land Use Bylaw after much debate, concerns about themes and signage concerns received both second and third reading.        

Note: Keep in mind one very important number $4325