Subdivision development explored in council briefs

By Cole Parkinson
Vauxhall Advance
cparkinson@tabertimes.com

Subdivision and development
appeal board changes

With changes to the appeal board, the Town of Vauxhall council was given three options on how they could proceed.

“Option one is we form our own board, we recruit, we train and do the reporting and have our own clerics. Option two is municipality form and run their own board with training and individual municipalities use ORSC clerks with fees. Option three is what we’re doing now. We do pay ORSC yearly for their services,” said Mayor Margaret Plumtree.

While all three were available to choose, council was very in favour of keeping things the way they were.

“Options one and two for a municipality our size is quite unrealistic. Option three is the only reasonable option,” said Deputy Mayor Richard Phillips.

The motion to choose option three was passed unanimously.

Letter to review sewer bylaw

A letter from Senneker Construction asking to review the town’s bylaw for sewer rates as they feel they are being charged too much.

Currently they are seeing a charge of $75 per month but they are seeking a reduction to $36 base charge and a consumption charge of $20.09 based on their invoice breakdown in 2016.

Their thought is none their water used to create concrete goes into the sewer system.

“The argument is water is one rate and sewer is another rate and the sewer volume is the same as the water essentially. The assumption is your water goes to sewer. His logic is perfect but where it breaks down is you can have somebody who has a large lawn and puts a lot of water on their lawn saying that water doesn’t go into the sewer therefore the (owner) should pay less on the sewer rate than somebody in an apartment who doesn’t have a lawn and all of their water goes down the sewer,” said Phillips.

“If he’s prepared to have no sewer than there would be no charge at all but if you need sewer, the pipe is there.”

Most of council agreed while the logic was certainly right, the solution wasn’t easily solvable.

“I’m just concerned with the precedence that might be set without some kind of uniformity to add consistency in terms of application. I, to some degree, sympathize but 80 per cent of the water we consume comes back from the sewer system. There could be arguments developed on the residential side, maybe we shouldn’t have a sewer rate for them at all and that’s what I’m concerned about here. I just don’t feel comfortable making this decision without looking at the implications,” said Coun. Ray Coad.

They decided to bring the issue back at a future meeting.

Vauxhall Spurs donation

With baseball season starting to fire up, the Vauxhall Spurs were looking for a donation of up to $5,000 to help offset some costs involved with the season.

The town doesn’t have a policy related to donation requests but with the 2018 budget almost complete, administration advised to decline the request.

“They are definitely in our Canada Day celebrations every year. Their largest expenses are busing and hotel accommodations but as we know with working on our budget, we have some big expenses this year that we need to consider,” said Plumtree.

While the team was grateful for any type of donation, council realizes their budget this year is tight and every dollar counts.

Another point of view was they don’t fund any other travel costs for their sports teams so this should be no different.

“Let’s say some kid wants to play soccer and they have to drive to Coaldale or Taber to play, the town is not footing the bill to play soccer. If you want to play baseball, it’s going to cost money,” said Phillips.

The council elected to follow administration’s request and decline making a donation.

Community Center Advisory Committee

Another resident has stepped up expressing interest in joining the Vauxhall Community Center Advisory Committee which is appointed by council.

Valerie Mattice put her name forward for the committee which council approved.

They also put forward a resolution to cease any new members being appointed as the committee currently sits at eight members in total.

RCMP 2018 March stats

Numbers in brackets represent the number from 2017 in March.

Impaired driving / 24 hour / 30 day suspension 1 (1), assaults 2 (1), break and enter 0 (0), thefts 0 (1), threats 0 (0), mischief 0 (2), controlled drugs and substances act 0 (0), other criminal code / other statues 2 (5), assistance to police / other agencies / general public 0 (0), 911 hang ups 2 (2), false alarms 2 (0), abandoned vehicles 1 (0), animal calls 0 (0), suspicious persons / vehicles 1 (0), lost and found property 0 (0), firearms act 0 (0), check stops 0 (0), traffic complaints 1 (2), traffic collisions 3 (0), bylaw complaints 0 (0), admin files 1 (4), total calls 16 (18). 

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