The Tarsands Canoe and Kayak Club from Fort McMurray attended the Nov. 9 Town of Cochrane council meeting to present a cheque to the Rock the Waves foundation.
Organizers had discussed how their group was going to be finished in 2015 and wanted to donate the leftover proceeds to another organization. Tarsands Canoe and Kayak club members president Bill Hunter, vice-president Harold Roth and treasurer Dianne Hunter presented a cheque of $5,422.05 to Rock the Waves.
Mayor Ivan Brooker accepted.
Isaac Comandante and Richard McCullough from Behr Energy Services Ltd. presented the Fire Master Plan to mayor and council with 10 recommendations, detailing the areas of regionalized emergency services; medical response; fire prevention, inspections, pre-planning and public education activities; hazardous materials awareness and response strategy; performance standards; roles and responsibilities, level of competency assessments; staffing; Sunset Station 152 status, database management; and communication system – deployment and response.
Out of the 10 it was suggested by representative Mac deBeaudrap, senior manager Protective Services, to adopt five recommendations to look into regionalization; staffing recommendations such as re-establishing and filling the deputy fire chief of operation position; a Station 152 recommendation to not remove any signage and continue to explore all of Cochrane’s options in this regard; and the technology-tools recommendation to explore more-affordable software and information-technology (IT) solutions.
Mayor Ivan Brooker and Coun. Jeff Toews both expressed their disappointment in the report. Brooker said he was not in favour of all the recommendations and called the report “horribly generic.” Toews said he was disappointed in the document commenting the report could have been done “in-house.”
The report was received as information with further discussion to be had between administration and mayor and council.
Nine out of the 15 flood projects have been completed.
Project 3, the Heritage Hills Slump, is listed under private with no spoken update at council; Project 5, the GlenEagles Blvd Slump, has a listed completion date of 2015/2016; Project 10 and Project 12, the Griffin Road Pedestrian Underpass and the Pedestrian Bridge west of Highway 22 bridge are listed as underway; and Projects 13 and 15, the Bow Meadows Pedestrian Trail and the water treatment plant intake are under review.
The town also identified three potential projects through the flood recovery and erosion control grant program and received $5.05 million in grant funding.
Suzanne Gaida, senior manager, community services, requested an extension on the grant funding. The majority of Project 2, Jumping Pound Creek George Fox Trail Bridge and a portion of Project 1, Jumping Pound Creek George Fox Trail to Bow River, have been completed with Project 3, Bow River Berm, currently under review.
Alberta Environment and Parks announced and commenced the Upper Bow River hazard study, which could include up to date flood maps for Cochrane. Gaida said administration wanted to wait until this study is complete in spring of 2017 before deciding whether or not to proceed with the remaining projects as new data may make a difference in whether an option is feasible or not.
An extension of the grants until Dec. 31, 2018, was approved.
The motion of notice by Coun. Morgan Nagel to discuss local road standards was postponed to the next council meeting, as Nagel was not in attendance at the Nov. 9 council meeting.
