DIDSBURY -- The town will not be hiring an outside consultant to do a review of water and wastewater at this time.
At its regular meeting on April 23, council postponed a vote for having the town spend up to $20,000 for a third-party consultant to complete the water and wastewater departmental review. The money for the expenditure would have been funded equally by water and wastewater reserves.
Mayor Rhonda Hunter said council is looking for information for water and wastewater rates that would be based on consumption.
"Looking for a user-pay system that would be fair and equitable to all residents accessing our water and wastewater systems," said Hunter. "Council also asked for a complete review of the water and wastewater department budget to look for efficiencies in that budget.
"Didsbury charges the lowest rates in our area for water and wastewater. However, we want the review to ensure we are being the most efficient we can with the costs of this department that are incurred by our residents and businesses."
The motion was in response to an earlier council resolution asking that administration complete a full review of the water and wastewater utility fees structure as a user pay system as well as allocation of employees, administrative and internal charges for the second council meeting in September.
Hunter said staff will review council's request and return with a proposal at the end of next month.
"The motion was to postpone until a date can be set," she said. "There's lots going on (at the town) so we thought for staff to put together more information we agreed they needed more time. There's more research that's needed to be done to look into the options that are out there."
Meanwhile, council passed a motion to approve the audited 2018 Town of Didsbury Financial Statement, which was presented to council at the regular council meeting on April 9 by representatives of BDO Canada LLP.
Hunter said that council was happy with how the town's audit went but wanted more time to look at it.
"We asked for more time to review the audit as we had only received it one day in advance of the council meeting where it was presented," she said. "We were pleased with the audit results and we appreciate the work our finance department and all of administration does to continue achieving clean audits annually."
A motion to rescind the previous offsite levy bylaw (2011-10) and adopt a new offsite levy bylaw (2019-06) was postponed until the next council meeting.
The background information provided to council stated that the current offsite levy bylaw (2011-10) requires administration to review annually and update if deemed necessary.
Bylaw 2011-10 had not been updated for several years, as such a review was conducted to ensure the language and interpretation was properly reflected.
Council approved the reserve bids for three properties that are being offered up for auction due to being in tax arrears.
According to the background information presented to council, if a property owner is in arrears of their property taxes for two years, the town registers a tax notification against the property.
If the tax arrears are not paid in full by March 31 of the following year the town MUST offer it for sale at a public auction.
There are currently three properties that meet the criteria and will be offered for sale at a public auction: A property on 19th Avenue with an assessed value of $168,270; a property on Co-op Road with an assessed value of $255,700; and a property on Bluebird Drive assessed at $275,680.
Council approved the hiring of Urban Systems to complete the Didsbury review and rewrite of the town's municipal development plan (MDP). Urban Systems was the winning bidder of the request for proposal (RFP), which was issued on March 25.
The background information provided to council stated that the MDP is a key policy plan that communicates the long-term desired land use for the town.
It is a high-level blueprint that shows how the Town of Didsbury is expected to change over time and the shape it will take in the future.
The budget for this operational item was set at $70,000.
