Council Notes
Drumheller Town Council
Committee of the Whole Meeting
Monday, November 20, 2017Barb Miller, acting CAO and director of corporate services gave an update on the progress of the aquaplex renovations.
The leaks have been identified and repaired. Since then, more problems have been found, causing deficiencies.
Contractors will be updating the town on the timeline for reopening.
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A Request for Direction was brought to council’s attention to gain clarity, and to establish guidelines about mobile vending.
In 2005, management of this topic was in reference to push carts, not trucks, trailer units, and SeaCans.
The Suspension Bridge, the Hoodoos, Rotary Park, Newcastle Beach and the BCF parking lot were mentioned as potential areas to host mobile and or permanent vending.
Prime locations, flexibility of the bylaw, and the definition of vending units were the hot topics of this discussion.
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Council discussed the possible formation of a special task force specializing in business attraction and retention.
The councillors agreed that the focus of the new task force was too narrow. They wished to have individuals with broad and different perspectives to research new ideas and gather input. Council will be giving them 90 days to do so. An extra month will be given to present a report.
Council talked about resources for this force, the qualifications to join, and some guidelines for these volunteers to follow. This will later be given to the Economic Development Task Force to take into account for future projects and new directions.
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Council discussed the scope of the vision and mission statements.
Town staff were asked to send in their own interpretations of the mission and vision statements. More time was given to get more input from both the Town and the community.
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Council came to a consensus to wait a year before being reevaluating their wages through the Remuneration Task Force amended policy C-04-14.
Council has decided to add this item to the next meeting agenda to change the timing.
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Meeting adjourned at 6:50 p.m.

Council’s Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting began at 4:33 p.m. on Monday, November 6.
Mayor Heather Colberg started off by saying that a local teacher sent Colberg a text which was addressed to her and council. The teacher reminded councillors that they are promoting Drumheller and to be conscious about what they are discussing.

Mayor Colberg gave an update on the Strategic Planning Discussion that was held on November 2 at 7:00 p.m.
They went over meeting dates and times, possibly moving COW meetings to the same week as a regular meeting but on a different day.
They also discussed open houses, budget discussions, the specific roles of town council and the committee structure.
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CAO Darryl Drohomerski’s report was centered around the Aquaplex Project and a reminder of the Snow Removal Policy after the large dump of snow over the weekend.
Since Saturday, the Aquaplex pool now has water in it. They will take a water sample to Calgary once the water has filtered out any chemicals by Wednesday or Thursday. The results will hopefully be in by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.
Drohomerski said that they are still on target for opening on November 16 and are right around the budget with the addition of a couple extras like unforeseen amounts of concrete. He is working with the contractor to determine the best price for the town.
The pool will have a soft opening as they want to work out any problems that may arise. Drohomerski wants to work with community services to plan a date for the end of November or the beginning of December.
For the Snow Removal Policy, Drohomerski began by saying that Environment Canada had called as they had no idea it had snowed more than a foot by Friday night. Their original forecast predicted 5cm.
The snow removal policy itself was updated and accepted on February 15 of this year.
Drohomerski explained their goal is to make easy access out of everyone’s neighbourhood. The town plans to clear these up within three or four working days. They are already working on this.
Council was given booklets to review to see if they wished to discuss and change the current plan.
The town spent $15,000 for one day of snow removal with an estimate of $60,000 to get most of the current snow cleared after 40 cm of snow fell in the Valley.
Hills and other streets are taken care of on a complaint driven basis. Sanding and salting typically follow the main routes but are mostly complaint driven as well.
This topic will be brought back to council at the next COW meeting.
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Each department head gave a report on their departments to Council for information.
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The meeting adjourned at 6:50 p.m.