Council Highlights - November 15, 2016

Citizens' Minute with Council

Residents are welcome to speak to Council about issues, events, celebrations or concerns during Minute with Council. At the beginning of each regular Council Meeting, Mayor Mackin opens the floor to the public to speak and share with Council members, administration and meeting observers.

Brenda Liu
Liu has recently experienced Sanitary sewer backup problems. After working with plumbers and contractors, the issue was revealed to be a misaligned service line on Town Property. As specified in Policy #38, the Town and Liu have reached an agreement in which the Town reimbursed costs related to the issue on Town property. Liu offered thanks to staff members for their help in the process, and also recommended a number of changes to the way information on these problems are presented on the website and policy. CAO Schwirtz reported that there are generally 2-3 similar issues a year like this one and thanked Liu for drawing attention to the problem, saying policy will be revisited as a priority in the near future.

Delegations

FCSS Storybook LINKages Program
Lisa Brett spoke to Council on the program, which the Town has facilitated for the last 7 years. Focusing on linking the ages between seniors and school aged youth, the program has goals of creating friendships, fostering community, and growing the socialization of both the seniors and students.

Growing Great Kids
Caryn Bouchard reports the first year of the GGK Coalition has been successful. Connections have been made with playschools, AHS, friendship centre, and more. The coalition have created a number of successes and will continue to strengthen connections in the community. Bouchard informed Council that the agency will continue in spring and summer 2017. Bouchard also informed Council that the Province has significantly reduced the Early Childhood Intervention Program in Hinton, causing a gap in service for our community. GGK would like to see this service returned to previous levels, and a petition has already seen a number of signatures. A lobbying effort has been begun, with superintendents from both school divisions as well as the local MLA contacted to help get it returned. Council supported more efforts to lobby for this cause.

Action Items

Council Procedure Bylaw #1060-5
Council voted That section 27 (6) include the reasoning behind bringing the resolution back to council, and in doing so gave third and final reading to Council Procedure Bylaw #1060-5. The matter has returned from the November 1^,2016 meeting. It is good governance to establish clear and transparent procedures for Council meetings that provide the opportunity for all stakeholders (Council members, administration and the general public) to attend and contribute.

Loan Bylaw #1106
Following the first reading of the bylaw on November 1, the Town has advertised the proposed loan bylaw and received the following feedback: - None received.

The final decision was that 40,000 dollars be released immediately, and the second increment of up to 35,000 dollars be accessible by December 7, 2016 based on defined cash flow projection.

Fortis Municipal Franchise Fee for 2017
Under the Electric Distribution Franchise Agreement between the Town of Hinton and FortisAlberta Inc. a franchise fee of 10.7% is paid to the municipality calculated as a percentage of the Company’s actual revenue in that year from the Distribution Tariff rates charged for Electric Distribution Service within the Municipal Service Area. Administration recommends maintaining the franchise fee at 10.7%. Council has an annual opportunity to debate and alter this fee; they voted that Council maintains the Hinton municipal franchise fee rider applied to all Fortisalberta distribution
tariffs, except riders and rebates, at 10.70%.

Information Items

Mayor Rob Mackin: The Mayor reported on the Inspiration Awards, as well as a discussion with MP Jim Eglinski in regards to the national potential of the Hinton Training Centre and Geothermal discussions currently ongoing at the national and provincial level. The Mayor also informed Council that the award package for Participatory Budgeting has been inducted into the Minister's Library of Excellence.

CAO Mike Schwirtz: The CAO informed Council that the Inspiration Awards will be televised by Shaw TV Friday, November 18 @ 2:30 pm, Sunday, November 20 @ 9:00 am, and Sunday, November 20 @ 7:00 pm.

Town of Hinton Newsflash

- Thank you for engaging in the Dr. Duncan Murray Recreation Centre 10 Year Strategy Public Feedback process. The report is anticipated to come before Council during the November 22, 2016 Standing Committee Meeting. The meeting will get underway at 4pm, and the public are welcome to attend. If you'd like to be notified of the report, please head to Hinton.ca and select Notify Me. From there, you can sign up for our email or text message notification system, and receive messages when we share postings based on areas of your interest.

- The Town of Hinton is a scent free building. When attending Council Meetings or visiting facilities, please be considerate of staff and ensure you are not wearing strongly scented deodorants or antiperspirants, colognes or perfumes, or scented hair products.

- Staff members who normally operate out of The Guild are in temporary locations as work on the Hinton PAV continues. Find more information on all of their new locations by reading the post on our website, available here.

You can view the entire agenda package here.

Just a reminder, the next Council meeting will be held November 22 2016 in The Committee Room at 4:00 pm.