CARSTAIRS -- At its regular meeting on March 11, town council passed final reading of a motion to re-designate a portion of Scarlett Ranch from municipal reserve (MR) to public utility lot (PUL).
The motion came after a public hearing as well as a presentation from the town's planner Sarah Nielsen from Urban Systems.
Carstairs CAO Carl McDonnell said the re-designation is mostly a housekeeping item.
"This was three lots down in Scarlett Ranch by the elementary school," said McDonnell. "There is an ATCO transmission line that runs through that area. There is a strip there that was registered as municipal reserve (MR). MR is typically park space.
"It will be a utility right-of-way or public utility lot because there is a utility under it. It was just a housekeeping duty to change it from municipal reserve to public utility lot."
McDonnell said the public hearing, which occurred before the regular council meeting, saw a few people come out wondering about the difference between MR and PUL.
Council also heard a delegation from Jeff Faupel of Endeavored Chartered Accountant, who gave the annual audit report for 2018.
"The audit looks good," said McDonnell. "It's clean, no issues. They're happy with everything."
In other news, council received the regional fire policy and governance review final report.
"The region, the five towns and the county, hired a consultant to come in and review the fire departments to see if there were areas, not necessarily on the operation side because they already work together with a mutual agreement, but on the governance or administrative side whether more efficiencies could be found working together," he said.
"The report came back with some recommendations. Because we share the fire department with the county, council accepted it for information and has referred it to the inter-community collaboration committee, which oversees the fire departments."
