Mountain View County Reeve Bruce Beattie will be writing a letter to Alberta Transportation expressing concerns with the provincial government's current funding process for bridgework in rural municipalities.During the last policies and priorities meeting, councillors were told that the county recently submitted a three-year bridge program to Alberta Transportation under the GAP funding program, and that if approved the funding would be used to assist the county with maintenance, design and construction of bridge structures.More than a dozen proposed bridgework projects were identified in the submission.“The county received a response back from Alberta Transportation on July 18,” administration said in a note to council. “At this time, no commitments have been made to funding. In discussions with Alberta Transportation they are hoping to have reviewed all the municipalities' bridge requests by mid-August.“At this time they will prioritize the projects with each region and let the municipalities know what they should expect for funding individually.”During discussions of the matter, several councillors expressed concerns with the lack of a firm commitment of funding by the province.“This is a somewhat new development and it is not the way had this happened in the past,” said Reeve Bruce Beattie. “They've changed and I can tell you that the provincial government currently is not operating at what I would call a high level of efficiency.“There seems to be a great deal of confusion at that level, from my perspective, in a number of (provincial) departments about how to get things done. Whether that's from Agriculture, Transportation or Municipal Affairs for that matter.“People keep putting this down to, well it's a new administration and it's taking them time to figure out how to do things. Well the administration hasn't changed; it's the politicians who haven't figured out how to get things done and administration is sort of standing back, in my perspective, and trying to figure out how do we get things done when we don't get any clear direction from the political side.”Coun. Paddy Munro said the county needs provincial funding commitments as part of its budgeting process.“I don't care how we do it as long as we get with the program here,” said Munro. “The deal with these bridges, like Big Prairie going on five years to completion, it's not acceptable. Of course we have to do planning for budgeting, but the way we are going at it now, the whole procedure isn't right.“I think we should have the CAO contact administration (of Alberta Transportation). It's taking too long. We need information so we can do our planning. It's time to pull out the stops and make it happen.”Councillors passed a motion to have the reeve and administration send letters to Alberta Transportation expressing the county's concerns with the funding situation.“I would tell you that realistically it's going to be a problem for a while, I think, until we get some kind of message across or they figure out that they need to get some of these things done,” said Reeve Beattie.“In my communications with various levels of the provincial government, there's a lot of frustration in terms of understanding what the processes can be and how those processes are going to take place.”AREA STRUCTURE PLAN AMENDMENTS COMING TO VOTEIn other council news, councillors are scheduled to give first reading to several proposed bylaw amendments relating to existing area structure plans and how they relate to the county's recently-passed municipal development plan.“It is appropriate to amend or repeal some plans and to amend the land use bylaw to remove major inconsistencies with the new MDP,” John Rustling, director of planning and development services, told council.“Administration wants to emphasize that these amendments do not replace the more comprehensive process of reviewing all plans and bylaws. The bylaws that are attached address major inconsistencies with the municipal development plan.“The more formal area structure plan review process will take some time to complete and involve consultation with stakeholders.”The proposed bylaw amendments scheduled to be considered this week relate to the QEII and Highway 27 ASP, the South McDougal Flats ASP and the Southeast Sundre ASP.COUNTY MAKES FLOOD CLAIMCouncillors have approved the county making an $87,000 claim to Alberta Emergency Management for flood-related costs incurred last spring.The county experienced high water along the banks of the Little Red Deer River, the Red Deer River and other tributaries on June 6.“As a result of high water many range roads and township roads were closed temporarily for public safety,” administration said in a note to council. “The majority of the expenses the county is claiming for are for the re-installation of the temporary bridge on Rge. Rd. 52. After this claim is processed, the county will await confirmation on funding.”OIL SPILL DELAYS WEEDINGIn her monthly Legislative, Community and Agricultural Services report, manager of agriculture Jane Fulton said the June 7 Plains Midstream oil spill on the Red Deer River has impacted a weed picking program.“The Red Deer River picking project was put on hold for this year with concerns of the oil spill outweighing the weed concerns,” said Fulton. “The Fallen Timber Creek weed picking project is still ongoing; progress has been slower due to the high volume of weeds present.“We have been working with Dow Agro Sciences over the last three years in performing some trial plots for the control of Wild Caraway in the Bergen area.”She also noted that inspectors are “scouting for areas with high thistle concentrations, infestations of Toadflax and keeping an eye out for new infestations of Scentless Chamomile.”
