Council Overview
Information from Drumheller Town Council
Regular Council Meeting Monday, May 9, 2022
Mayor Heather Colberg opened the meeting and welcomed the public back to council chambers and council made several opening remarks.
Councillor Crystal Sereda announced on Friday, May 13 Travel Alberta is hosting an open house; registration to this event is required.
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Palliser Regional Planning Services CEO Devin Diano and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) coordinator Cody Dale-McNair gave council a presentation on how Palliser works for the municipality. They explained Palliser has been in operation as a planning commission since the 1970s and was reformed as an agency following changes to the Municipal Government Act (MGA) in 1995. They provide planning, GIS, safety code services and more to 24 member municipalities, including the Town of Drumheller; Councillor Sereda currently sits on the board of directors as Town representative.
Palliser is involved in helping municipalities with their Municipal Development Plans (MDP), Land Use Bylaws (LUB), and Intermunicipal Development Plans (IDP) as well as providing attendance and recommendations for Subdivision Appeal Board hearings.
They are currently working to develop a webmap to move documents and information to one centralized, digital location-not only to protect critical infrastructure data-but also to ensure information relating to specific departments is not lost due to personnel changes. The information contained in the webmap has both public and private access and has information regarding property lines and infrastructure integral to the Town’s planning documents.
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Operations and Community Development manager for Community Futures Big Country, Allison Roppel and Town of Drumheller Economic Development manager, Reg Johnston, presented council with the results of the Drumheller Region Business Survey.
A total of 113 businesses were surveyed between January and March 2022 in the Drumheller and Starland County region; the information collected during the survey will help Community Futures to assist and support businesses in the region.
Data from the tourism sector was presented based on its impacts on the local economy, and it was found some $70 million in sales directly from tourism is spent in the Drumheller-Starland region annually. This represents about 570 jobs in the community, and Ms. Roppel noted this information is helpful when applying for grants as it helps identify the impact of tourism.
80 per cent of the respondents surveyed were very positive about the state of their businesses, and about two-thirds of respondents were looking to hire within the next 12 months. However, these businesses did note the local labour pool posed some challenges.
Overall, about 95 per cent of businesses surveyed were supportive of tourism and 70 per cent said they aw direct impacts of tourism-both great indicators of the importance of the sector in the region.
This data will help Community Futures develop further initiatives with its partners.
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Mr. Johnston presented council with third reading of the amended Bylaw 01.22 Residential Development Incentive Program. Since it was last brought before council the rental rates and maximum amount for a home to qualify within the program were increased. Mr. Johnston noted, if approved, this information will be communicated to the public and developers.
It was recommended the bylaw be reviewed on a four year cycle with every new council.
Council unanimously approved third reading to amend the bylaw as presented.
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Flood Mitigation project director Deighen Blakely presented council with the bids for the Downtown Dike Phase 1 project. A total of three bids were received, though even the lowest bid of $3.5 million was approximately $1 million above the initially budgeted amount of the project.
Council was presented with the option to award the tender as presented or cancel the tender to undertake design reviews and re-tender the project in the fall of 2022, though this could see costs increase due to inflation.
Council voted in favour of cancelling the tender.
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Director of Infrastructure Dave Brett presented council with a tender to complete the Nacmine Forcemain construction. Five bids were received and the lowest bid of $1,207,461.68 came in under budget while meeting all criteria; bids ranged from $1.2 million to $2.6 million with an average of between $1.6 and $1.7 million.
Council unanimously awarded the tender to UG Excavating of Calgary for the amount of $1,207,461.68.
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Council moved to closed session and the meeting was adjourned.
Complete minutes from council meetings can be found on
www.drumheller.ca once they have been adopted.