CARSTAIRS - At the regular council meeting on Feb. 27, council heard from Earl Dreeshen, member of Parliament for Red Deer-Mountain View, who spoke to council and staff about several issues important to the region.
Dreeshen was invited to speak by council, said CAO Carl McDonnell.
"We talked about the Build Canada fund and the recent announcement from the provincial government that most of the money would go to their priorities instead of being filtered through to the municipalities," said McDonnell.
"He also updated us with what is going on in Ottawa; what to anticipate with the budget coming up. He talked about electoral reform to a certain extent and what that looks like. With no major changes, of course, we just had the realignment to the boundaries federally. So no changes here." Dreeshen also updated council on what he sees coming forward, said McDonnell.
In other council news, council passed final reading on Bylaw 1045, which redesignates the land use for 693 - 10th Avenue from Low Density Residential-Single Detached (R1) to Medium Density Residential-Attached Dwelling (R3). The parcel of land to be rezoned is 0.809 hectares.
"That will tie in with the neighbouring piece of land to the south, which currently is zoned R3," said McDonnell.
"Now they have their land use they have to come out with a concept plan or area structure plan, which would show how it would lay out and how the servicing would happen with the water, sewer and transportation."
The Carstairs Library Board submitted its 2016 budget, which was approved as information by council.
There are a total of 1,872 cardholders as of Dec. 31. There were 21,697 in-person visits last year as well as 13,317 "virtual" visits.
The library has a total physical collection of 19,946 items. The total circulation (items circulated directly to library users) was 44,375.
Of that, 11,365 were adult print, 1,207 were young adult print and 19,815 were juvenile print.
In 2016, the library had 468 total programming sessions including 161 adult, 130 children, 42 for young adults and 135 for family/multigenerational. In all, there were 7,302 participants including 2,921 children.
