April 26 Council Meeting

Detailed reports of the meeting can be found on the County website. 

Centre in the Park Parking

Council took the controversial Centre In the Park parking issue head on. A few months ago Council recognized the public’s concern over limited ‘free’ (subsidized) parking by supporting my proposal for 23 surface parking spots that the public could use without paying.  After much debate and discussion – a weighing of all sides – Council reached, in my opinion – a fair compromise.

Council approved administration’s recommendation to increase the Library and County staff paid parking in the covered parkade by another 30 stalls. The rationale was to create an additional 30 public parking on the surface lot by moving staff inside - bringing the total to 50 public stalls in the north surface lot. Council also approved limiting the parking time to 2 hours per stall. This will encourage optimum utilization and opportunity to find parking.

Further improvements included adding 4 handicapped accessible stalls within the P1 level of the parkade, where they will not be charged for use but will also have a 2 hour time limit applied. This addresses the need to accommodate the segment of facility users that have restricted mobility.
I believe that the public now has reasonable access to parking. In addition administration assured Council that significant improvements will be made in signage and payment direction over the next month. Given the improvements I felt confident in approving the amended parking bylaw that will now allow Facility Services to enforce parking violations within the parkade, and in future in other designated paid parking areas.


2011 Tax Rate

Council reviewed and made official the 2011 tax rate. It is significant that municipal residential taxes contribute 26.5% towards paying for municipal services. Our industry partners contribute 31.1% - a far cry from other less well positioned neighbouring municipalities with less industry who are forced to burden their residents with 90% of the tax burden. About 68 cents of the municipal tax dollar provides us with our essential services of road maintenance, public transit, ambulance services as well as fire and police protection. This year’s tax rate increase will come in at 3.45%. Audited financial statements and slide presentation.

Watershed Alliance

The North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance presented to Council. I highly recommend as a ‘must read’ the discussion paper for the Development of an Integrated Watershed Management Plan for the North Saskatchewan River Watershed  We depend on this magnificent 57,000 sq km watershed, made up of 12 sub watersheds  to provide homes, industry and businesses for 1.2 million people. This study is a foundation for collaborative watershed management and is a credit to the province’s capacity to protect water quality and flow for future generations.

Governance Policies

Finally the long awaited group of Governance Policies on conduct and relationship between  elected officials and administration.  This document should be up next week on the County website, along with the minutes of the meeting.

When all is said and done – these guidelines are foundation documents – core to communication and collaboration between staff and elected officials. They should have been in place decades ago. On top of that – the sad reality is that in the final analysis it is you the voter that judges are performance. We are here to serve you – at your discretion. I urge you to demand accountability and transparency of us. Hold us to our Code of Ethics. I appreciate your review of these policies and any comments you care to make.