During the GPC meeting on Tuesday, July 16th, council discussed the following topics.

WCB for Third Parties

Council discussed how to move forward with WCB for third parties and were presented with five different options for WCB for third parties. They were as follows:

1) Status quo, do nothing different, continue to insure the groups on the WCB account at present.

2) Direct administration to get a legal opinion on the liability of adding (and not adding) additional groups to our accounts so that we fully understand our risk.

3) Direct administration to create a policy on what groups we will insure on WCB such as groups that operate on Municipal land or are partnering on projects with the Municipality.

4) Advise third party groups (new and current) to get their own WCB account.

5) Advise third party groups (new and current) to get their own WCB account and off set the cost with a grant.

Administration also mentioned that it is recommended that the municipality not have an third party groups, new or current, where the municipality doesn’t control the work, verify the training and/or oversee safety of the workers due to the liability involved.

A possible option as well to help offset cost brought forward by administration was a grant.

Council didn’t make any hard decisions at the meeting and will continue to look at this topic in the future.

Community Parks and Trails Bylaw

Council held a discussion based on the use of E-bikes on trails.

Councillor Sygutek brought up safety concerns regarding speed of the bikes on the trails.

Mayor Painter added to the discussion that neighbouring cities have put bylaws in place allowing E-bikes on trails.

Part of the discussion revolved around how hard it would be to police people using E-bikes on trails if the municipality were to not allow them.
According to council, part of the municipality’s problem is the trail sizes are too small currently to comfortably fit multiple different users passing each other.

Council decided after the discussion they would allow the use of E-bikes on trails while Councillor Sygutek says she doesn’t think E-bikes should be allowed on the ski hill trails.

Crow Snow Riders

Council discussed what they would like to do regarding a change to the operating grant for CrowSnow Riders.

The current arrangement is that non-employers are operating the municipality’s equipment without any oversight to protect the municipality’s liabilities.

Administration would recommend that the equipment be turned over to the CrowSnow Riders and that their operating grant be increased equivalent what was previously being spent on insurance and registration.

Following that recommendation, council asked administration to sit down with CrowSnow Riders to discuss this further.

Turtle Mountain Restricted Development Zone

Council held a discussion surrounding the current Restricted Development Zone around Turtle Mountain.

Administration reported to council that they have been in contact with BGC Engineering to discuss what it would take to update the risk assessment for Turtle Mountain since the last report was completed in 2000.

Since the monitoring program began in 2003, the understanding of the geohazard scenarios at Turtle Mountain has significantly evolved and several aspects of BGC’s 2000 report are no longer current. These include:

• The interpretation of the failure mechanisms has been refined

• The potentially unstable volumes have been updated

• Modern run out modeling techniques have been developed, which improve empirical relationships used in the past

• Secondary hazards, including landslide dam impoundment upstream of the dam, and outburst flooding downstream of the dam were not considered

• The inventory of elements at risk is no longer current The objective of the proposed rock avalanche risk assessment of Turtle Mountain is to update BGC’s 2000 assessment report incorporating the updates and innovations listed previously.

The proposed scope of work includes a rock avalanche analysis, run out modeling, and analysis of a potential landslide dam flood and outburst flood, a risk assessment, and the development of conceptual risk reduction strategies. The timeline to complete the project would ideally be early August with fieldwork occurring in September prior to snow accumulating on the ground. An interim report would be submitted in February 2020 and the final report in August 2020.

Administration says the cost estimate for this project is around $200,000.

Councillor Sygutek says it’s important that council continue moving forward with this.

Councillor Ward says that he understands the concerns but that he wouldn’t vote to spend $200,000 on this project as says that he would rather see council go back to the study that was done.

Ward says the council at the time this was put in place aired on the side of extreme caution and that there is the idea of moving the restriction closer to avoid having any problems for homeowners in the area.

This topic will return to council in in August or September.

Frank Wastewater Treatment Plant Update

The municipality is continuing to struggle with raising enough funds to make the much-needed upgrades and repairs to the Frank Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Council is currently about $8,000,000 short in funds for the project.

The issue of funding was raised with a meeting with the Minister of Alberta Transportation at the 2018 AUMA Convention.

He indicated that the Municipality should apply for both the AMMWP and ICIP grants and then he could see what he could do.

Administration checked into the applications, and at this time, was told that Alberta’s decisions related to the endorsement of ICIP projects for submission to the Federal government are tied to Provincial budget processes, which includes reviewing ICIP projects.

They anticipate having more information to share regarding the status of the municipality’s submission before the end of the calendar year.

The municipality has been asked to submit an addendum form if anything has changed since our submission, which Administration is reviewing at this time.

Any tenders awarded, contracts signed, and costs incurred prior to the federal approval are ineligible through ICIP.

To further complicate matters, if we do any significant change from our current design, we will have to start the AEP approval process again.

At this time Administration is recommending that the municipality continue with the current project scope and continue to explore possible funding sources.

New Recreational Facility

Council was presented the opportunity to state what their wishes would be for the location of a new recreational facility.

Council was given three options for location including building a new facility at the Albert Stella site, building adjacent to either the MDM or the Sports Complex or choosing an entirely new area.

The majority of Council said they would like to see a facility built by the Sports Complex to allow for maximum use as it’s an area that will be seen by people driving through the Pass.

Council was also presented an opportunity to give their wish list of what they’d like to see inside the new facility.

Most of council agreed that a new Fieldhouse, along with meeting rooms, a running track and fitness areas would be the best.

There will be much more discussion on this in the future.

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