Former Bowden councillor Steve Blamire was forced to resign from council earlier this month due to him moving to Red Deer County.
Under Municipal Government Act rules, once Blamire no longer resides in the community, he is unable to continue on council. At the July 9 meeting of council, it was unanimously decided that a byelection would not be held to fill Blamire's seat, as a majority of councillors thought it would cost too much money to conduct a byelection to fill Blamire's seat for the 15 months until the next general election in October 2013.
Blamire sent word of his resignation earlier this month.
As a result of the vacancy, Coun. Cory Jaspers was sworn in as deputy mayor, should Mayor Robb Stuart not be available to fulfil his duties.
“We'll go with five councillors until the next election,” Stuart said.
Council relinquishes town's accreditation in fire safety codes
Council decided to relinquish the town's accreditation in fire safety codes, on the recommendation of fire chief Larry Werner. Hitherto, the town had been accredited through the Alberta Safety Codes Council in the Fire Safety Codes division, which meant that a specific member of the department had to be trained to obtain Fire Safety Codes Officer certification. Werner, in consultation with administration, recommended relinquishing accreditation because it was too expensive and time consuming for a member to be trained, only to have them leave the department and have to repeat the process again.
“Right now, we're not the only one in the province doing it. There's a lot of small towns, I believe, that are going to be doing it because it costs so much to get a guy trained and small towns can't afford it nowadays,” Werner said.
Because most of the people that got trained in the past were members of the fire department – all volunteers – who come and go, Werner said it was difficult in the past to keep someone certified.
In addition, there are also specific reporting and tracking requirements that are part of being accredited.
As a result, a provincial fire inspector will now come to Bowden, when needed, to investigate and report as required by the codes. Andy Weiss, the town's chief administrative officer, wrote in a briefing note to council that levels of fire protection for the town won't be impacted by the change.
