Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas

All the best to you in this holiday season. I hope there is lots of time to relax, spend time with friends and family, and reflect on the past and coming year. The question each of us can ask is: What can I do in 2011 to make a positive difference to life in the Peace Country?

Leslie

Town Council Holiday Open House

Today's open house is from 3:00-7:00 PM at the Peace River Museum, Archives & Mackenzie Centre (10302-99 Street). It's an opportunity to meet your new mayor and council members and talk to them about where they see Peace River heading in 2011 and beyond.

Light refreshments will be served and the Peace River Community Choir will perform.

For more information, call the Town Office at 780-624-2574.

Peace River Town Council Regular Council Meeting: December 13, 2010

On the agenda for Monday, December 13:

Adoption of minutes, including those from a special Council meeting held on November 29 at the Belle Petroleum Centre, without staff present, where the decision was to appoint Renate Bensch as Acting CAO.
 
There is a public hearing on an amendment to the Land Use Bylaw to add two discretionary uses: "recycling depot" within the Mixed Commercial Residential District (C-R) and "indoor participant recreation services" under the Neighbourhood Commercial District (C-N) (this is a discretionary use under the C-R designation). There appears to currently be only one area of town with a C-N designation, but expanded residential development could lead to the creation of more of these districts. If the bylaw goes ahead, the way will be cleared for the Municipal Planning Commission to consider an application for a bottle depot at the former Ackland's building (behind the funeral home) and a "recreation service" in the North end where the bowling alley once stood.

There are four presentations to Council:
Don Good on what is probably his vision for changes in how taxation revenue is distributed (5:15)
The Mighty Peace Golf Course on assistance in funding improvements (6:00)
The Library Manager and I on the 2011 library budget (6:30)
The Oil Sands Sustainable Development Secretariat (7:30)

Under New Business:

• Council will be naming its choices for the Community Enhancement Awards
• Appointment of a new member to the Subdivision & Development Appeal Board
• Request from the Women's Shelter for land for expanded parking
• Request to approve an interim budget
• Making decisions on a number of grants and donations requests
• Reviewing the Mutual Aid Agreement
• Reviewing current economic development projects
• Reviewing the proposed change to the assessment services contract

Mark Your Calendar: Creating Rural Connections 2011 Conference – April 12 to 14, 2011

The Alberta Rural Development Network (ARDN) is hosting its second rural development conference at the Mayfield Inn & Suites, Edmonton, Alberta April 12 to April 14, 2011. Further details available in January.

There is a call for presentations out, due January 14, 2011, which can be about rural projects or programs underway or completed; rural research under development, in progress or completed; or training/learning opportunities that are available throughout rural Alberta. Groups can showcase existing partnerships between researchers/post-secondary institutions and communities. It would be good to see some sessions from Northern Alberta.

There are also opportunities for showcasing services, products, or organizations, with two levels of trade show sponsorships (information available at the same link as presentations).

Last year's conference in Lethbridge was very successful, bringing people from diverse sectors together to explore topics and mutual interests.

Council Committee of the Whole Agenda: December 6, 2010

The agenda package for Monday's Committee of the Whole meeting of Peace River Town Council is available for downloading or viewing.

At 5:00, Council will hear an economic development update.

Other items of interest:
Selection of the 2010 Community Enhancement Award recipients (one individual and one business). Nominees include:
Individual: Dave VanTamelen and the Alberta Summer Games Committee; Frank Light (fire safety training)
Business: River City Cinema; Peace River Town & Country Realty; Twilight Videos & Games; Java Domainn

Draft Parks & Trails Plan. According to the agenda package, this plan "provides an overview of the existing parks, playgrounds and trails within the municipality. It encompasses recommendations on the enhancement of existing trails and future development of new trails . . . [and] includes the existing 5 year Parks Upgrade plan" (the full draft document is included in the agenda package). The report references a number of important policy documents from the past three years, including Avi Friedman's downtown revitalization report, the new Municipal Development Plan, the Municipal Sustainability Plan, among others.

The Process Steps and Timelines are laid out in the Request for Decision, projecting (among other critical dates) a February 2 Public Input Open House and March 14 Council approval of the plan.


The AUMA Elected Officials Education Program (EOEP) motion that I blogged about previously is on this agenda.

Council Meetings in December and 2011: Councillor Lafontaine's request that Council consider meeting on December 20 and also on every Monday of every month throughout 2011 will be discussed. This would be a grueling schedule for staff and Council. It would mean that staff would be working prior to every long weekend to prepare the Council agenda package and that Council and some staff would lose every long weekend of the year to meeting preparation and attendance.

More troubling to me is that this schedule would also likely mean that there would be less than full Council in attendance for many of the meetings. This could allow for agenda manipulation on contentious items in order to limit debate or ensure passage of motions. I think it's important that as much as possible, every agenda item gets full attention by all or most of Council. When there are gaps built into the meeting schedule (monthly, for long weekends, or to allow for a longer summer or Christmas break), it can allow Council members to plan around those to ensure he can attend most meetings as well as have a break from Council work.

Council work can put a lot of strain on family and personal life and this proposal, while perhaps practical in terms of predictability, seems unnecessarily punitive for the CAO, Directors, other staff, and the families of mayor and councillors as well as Council members themselves.

RCMP September and October 2010 Mayor's Reports: The reports provide detailed crime statistics, broken down by category (e.g., assaults, break and enter, drugs, etc.) and by the area (Peace River municipal boundaries; the rural area around Peace River, and Grimshaw municipal boundaries). There are also traffic statistics and a "year in review" for crime and traffic statistics for the whole region. The 9 year overview provides a higher-level look at crime and traffic statistics for the region.

Great news for Peace River library project: Feds extend timeline for infrastructure stimulus project completion

This announcement about a 7-month extension for infrastructure stimulus projects is very welcome news and will give everyone involved in the Peace River library renovation and expansion project some breathing room. Peace River wasn't the only municipality facing challenges to complete by the deadline, but our lone voice did not hold much weight. When the former Council spoke with MP Chris Warketin about this, we were told the deadline was the deadline, no exceptions.

But when many of the major cities began to lobby for this change and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) stepped in to put pressure on the government to extend the deadline, I was encouraged and am now delighted. The local project appears to be on track for substantial completion by March 31 despite the relatively late start and the setback caused by the foundation failure, but this announcement does take off some of the pressure. Many thanks to FCM for advocating on behalf of all Canadian municipalities with stimulus funding.