CARSTAIRS -- Carstairs town council and staff continue to go through old policies and clean them up, said CAO Carl McDonnell.
At its regular council meeting on March 25, council repealed old bylaws regarding the regulation of running of large dogs (Bylaw No. 9); preventing cruelty to animals (Bylaw No. 18); and restraining and regulating the running at large or trespassing of animals (Bylaw No. 23).
"It hadn't shown that they had been repealed previously so we repealed them to get them off the books," said McDonnell.
Other town bylaws regarding dogs and other animals are already in place.
Council also approved Policy No. 26-007-19 Workplace Emergency Preparedness, which repealed the previous similar policy.
In other news, council reviewed the tender results for the Parkview to Highfield sanitary sewer project.
The tender was awarded to Grayson Excavating Ltd., which had the lowest qualifying bid at $536,187.65.
"We have two lift stations in town," he said. "Basically the lift stations are sanitary lines and they pump the sewage up to another area. What we're doing is the Parkview lift station needs to be replaced; it's almost 30 years old. We're able to run a new line from there through the public works yard, through a park space over to the Highfield lift station."
McDonnell said by doing that the town could eliminate the Parkview lift station.
"Council approved the decommissioning of the (Parkview) lift station and the new lines run over to the other lift station," he said. "That's a $650,000 budget item."
The project is expected to start May 1 and finish in early June, said McDonnell.
In other council news, council approved the terms of reference for the intermunicipal development plan (IDP) for the Town of Carstairs and Mountain View County.
"The intermunicipal development plan talks about how we would develop and how the county would develop around us," he said. "The area around us, which is basically a half-mile/quarter section, falls within that IDP area.
"It's so that we don't build something offensive to the county or so they're putting something offensive on our doorstep. We have this agreement about how things will be developed."
McDonnell said the IDP agreement needed to be updated due to the changes in the Municipal Government Act.
"They're doing the same thing with Didsbury and Sundre," he said. "We have some grant money left over from ICC so we're going to hire one consultant between the county, Carstairs, Didsbury and Sundre. Council passed that motion to do that subject to this common wording with Didsbury and Sundre."
In his CAO report, McDonnell reported that the town had negotiated with Scouts Canada regarding the Scout Hall in Carstairs.
"We negotiated the end of the lease and that the town would pay $26,430 to purchase the building," he said. "We'll take over ownership of the building effective April 1 pending everything being signed."
Council also approved a budget change for up to $100,000 less what is received from insurance for a fire truck to replace the one that was recently hit and damaged on the QE II, said McDonnell.
"Depending on how much we got from the insurance company, the county and the town would share the balance 50-50," he said.
