County Council Meeting - March 6, 2012

Council approved a variety of reports from departments. Information on all of the background reports and minutes are available here.

Webcast

To get the full flavour of how decisions are made tune into the webcast. The webcast is timed and titled so that you can refer immediately to your topic of interest.

Strathcona County Emergency Services (SCES)

The annual report revealed that there were more 911 calls, fewer outside fires, more structure fires, more vehicle collisions and an increasing number of Alberta Health Service calls and Medical First Response calls. 

Residents have heard a lot of media concern regarding ambulances being forced to wait for extraordinary long periods at hospitals. In these situations, our ambulance, if at an Edmonton hospital, is then directed by Alberta Health Services to the nearest call – whether it is in our municipality or not. If this leaves our municipality short of ambulances – emergency teams from other municipalities are sent into our area to answer our 911 call. Unfortunately, those teams are not always equipped and trained to the degree that our SCES is. The only good news here is that, so far our Emergency Services have managed to respond to 90% of Strathcona County calls. In fact, by strategic planning and use of Medical First Response teams, our performance and response times rank as Strathcona County as one of the top Alberta municipalities.    

RCMP Detachment Priorities for 2012

Superintendent Steinke reported the four top priorities for the Strathcona County detachment as being Traffic Safety, Drug Abuse, Property Crime as well as Domestic and Family Violence. Given last Council meetings annual statistics report, these priorities will resonate well with most residents. 

Victim Services

Strathcona County residents are fortunate to have a list of outstanding agencies to turn to when their lives get turned upside down. Victim Services is one of those groups. Last year over 927 residents received support from the police based unit. Forty highly trained volunteer advocates provided nearly 12,000 hours of twenty four hour assistance to residents. They work closely with Safe Place, SAFFRON, and other service agencies to help put lives back together.

They came to Council to announce their first annual ‘Moving Forward Run’. Residents should put this family information fair, BBQ and Run in their calendar for April 22^nd. www.runningroom.com

Seniors Advisory Committee to Council

It is always great to get updates from our public members. Chair Sue Smith introduced her committee and recommendations for 2012. The committee will focus on informing seniors all over the County about programs and services available with an emphasis on information sessions on financial benefits and subsidies. 

Field Sports will see increased opportunities

Council amended the Capital Budget to include revitalization of various sports fields’ diamonds for $675,000. This money will be used to reconfigure Centennial Park Diamond #5 for Midget and Bantam Baseball; re-align diamonds at Davidson Creek and Heritage Hills; and construct two new baseball diamonds at Emerald Hills. This work is going to mean a need for teams to work together and work around construction. Council has had reassurance that all stakeholders that are impacted now or in the future will be approached and worked closely with to ensure that there is equitable treatment and opportunity for the youth and adult teams that play baseball, softball and slo pitch in those areas now. I did request that administration support these organizations to attain corporate funding, CFIP and other available grants to leverage taxpayers’ investment into the renewal of sports fields.

Glen Allan Entrance Feature Supported by Council

Strathcona County is a young municipality and it’s residents have not experienced a great deal of infill activity. That is happening now in Glen Allan. A developer has been given permits to build 13 single residential lots on the original farmstead at Baseline and Glenbrook Blvd. Many of the surrounding residents have contacted the County with concerns over increased density, traffic and the elimination of green space. Realistically, this type of development will happen sooner or later. Developers in newer neighbourhoods see the value of Neighbourhood identity and build magnificent entrance features. Given that this development is small, the developer has been required by Council to build and landscape only one modest new entrance sign and relocate the existing one. This seems to be a good example of why neighbourhood identification with entrance signs should not be reliant on the largesse of developers and I understand that policy will be coming to Council soon.  

E News Bulletin

I send out an E News Bulletin four times a month to residents. It is an opportunity for me to inform you of events and matters of interest to your family and neighbours in a timely manner. These electronic news flashes also help me to get your input and touch base with you. You are welcome to sign up at carr@strathcona.ab.ca