Fire services agreement struck
A new contract has been struck between Red Deer County and the Town of Innisfail to provide fire protection for residents in the town and in the rural area around Innisfail.
Red Deer County will be contracting out the Innisfail fire department to provide protection in a designated rural area around the Town of Innisfail.
The county will be paying the Town of Innisfail an annual fee for it's services in exchange for taking on the cost of responding to incidents within the county.
The Innisfail fire department does currently respond to incidents in the county but are on a contract with the Innisfail Farm Fire Association until March.
The farm fire association previously held the contract for fire protection with Red Deer County but when the contract expired the county wished to being dealing with Innisfail directly.
The farm fire association has been hoping to wind down due to age and interest of its member so the timing worked well for the association.
Safety and service to residents will not be changing, as it is the same equipment and the same members who will be responding to incidents as before, said Darryl Joyce, director of corporate services for the Town of Innisfail.
Regional transportation plan considered
The Central Alberta Economic Partnership (CAEP) sent a proposal to the Town of Innisfail asking if they would be willing to support a regional transportation project.
This is not the first time the proposal has been put before council regarding the transportation proposal.
CAEP has been meeting with the City of Red Deer to discuss possible opportunities for the Red Deer transit system to extend to the surrounding communities to provide increased levels of public transportation.
Currently the City of Red Deer is applying for a grant from the Alberta Transportation's Green Transit Incentives Program or Green TRIP. Green TRIP would provide the city with infrastructure that would allow them to possibly extend their service to outlying towns.
CAEPs current proposal to town officials is to find out how interested they would be in contributing to the project and how much they would be able to contribute financially.
Town council voted to reply that they may be interested in participating and could potentially allocate $2 per capita funding towards the transportation strategy.
Commitment to the project would only be considered upon the presentation of a supportable business case, according to town officials.
"If this went forward it would be considered a more reliable form of public transport and could allow business people to live here and work in Red Deer," said Innisfail CAO Helen Dietz.
Members appointed to SDAB
Town council reappointed all six of the current member of the subdivision and development appeal board. The current members are Ian Cook, Craig McEachern, Dale Miller, Dawn Morrow, Gary Swan, and Rob Vander Velden.
The appeal board is a group of mainly citizens-at-large who listen to appeals made from citizens who are in disagreement with a decision of the Municipal Planning Commission.
