Sander system purchase request tabled
Council tabled a request for the purchase of new equipment used to spread sand on the roads during winter.
Last winter, the fleet services department had determined that the municipality’s sander had essentially reached the end of its useful lifespan, largely as a result of rust and metal fatigue, said Jim Hall, operations manager.
Plans were already in place to bring forward the request in January for a new sand spreading system, which is mounted on a town truck. But in light of the recent early snowfall that caught the department somewhat off guard, fleet services decided to see about the possibility of obtaining the upgrade sooner rather than later, Hall told council.
Coun. Cheri Funke moved the recommended motion for council to approve the purchase of a SaltDogg Sand Spreader System at a cost of $9,313 plus GST from Commercial Truck Equipment Co., with the funds to be transferred from the roads reserves.
However, Coun. Rob Wolfe said for the time being, he preferred tabling the motion until a later date as a result of taxation concern and funding requests raised earlier during the meeting.
Main Avenue Water Looping expanded scope
During construction of the first phase of the municipality’s water looping project at Main Avenue and Sixth Street, the depth of excavation required ended up within heavy groundwater levels, said Jim Hall, operations manager.
“Upon that, I started to look at the adjacent properties and thinking of the future tie-in points of trying to get them potable water,” said Hall, adding he inquired with the engineers and project contractor about the cost of installing two service points “while we have that massive hole made up so that we don’t have to dig there ever again, hopefully.”
The additional $52,000 would be money well spent to ensure that if and when adjacent properties’ owners eventually decide to tie in, the process will be easier than digging another big hole and dealing with the groundwater, he said.
Linda Nelson, chief administrative officer, called the operations manager's initiative “out of the box thinking” that “will definitely serve our community in the future. It would be quite costly to dig this line back up to install those tie-ins at a later date.”
Some of the cost associated with that additional work should be able to be recovered through off-site levies, she added.
Coun. Cheri Funke moved the recommended action to approve the additional expense, with the funds to be transferred from the Water Restricted Surplus that has a balance of about $488,000 after pending transfers and borrowings.
However, the councillor wanted to know whether the unplanned cost could potentially impact other projects. Chris Albert, director of corporate services, said most of the water-related projects are not on the immediate horizon and should therefore not be affected.
Following further discussion, council unanimously carried Funke’s motion.
Restricted surplus account policy
In an ongoing effort to establish a set of guidelines that allow the municipality’s individual departments to operate as effectively as possible without bogging down council with too many decisions, administrative staff have been developing a restricted surplus account policy, said Chris Albert, director of corporate service.
The intent behind the new policy — as well as others that are being drafted — also involves establishing clear and effective communication with council, he said.
“In no way or form do we want to remove council from decisions. We just want to be able to put things in place within certain guidelines, and then allow council to review them as a whole, rather than individual decisions,” he said.
The policy will define the creation and use of restricted surplus funds as well as establish acceptable purposes, sources of funding, minimum and maximum balances and applications for each account, reads background information in council’s agenda for the Oct. 15 meeting.
Highlights of the policy outlined in the report include creating stabilization accounts for individual departments and establishing a system that allows departments to use a portion of their budget surpluses for stabilization purposes.
“Currently we have a financial stabilization fund that is kind of all-encompassing. We would like to split that out a little bit and create stabilization funds for individual departments,” he said.
The main goal, he said, is “to allow individual departments to work within their budget, anticipate and be able to adapt to changing situations.”
Another aspect of the policy is to set maximum and minimum balances, he said.
“We want to create guidelines and rules as to where these funds are coming from and how much we can actually put away and set aside before we bring the issues to council.”
Quarterly reports would also keep council informed on each restricted surplus’s status, he said.
The presentation to council was for information only, with further discussion planned during a weekend workshop held Oct. 19-21.
Coun. Cheri Funke’s motion to receive the report for information carried.
Auction tax recovery sale avoided
Chris Albert, director of corporate services, informed council that the tax recovery sale that had been scheduled for Oct. 16 was in the end not necessary.
“We had six accounts on the tax sale,” said Albert, adding the municipality followed due process, including newspaper advertisements, after a council motion to move forward with the sale.
“We notified the interested parties, and I am happy to say that the tax sale has been cancelled,” he said, adding that the owners of all six properties had settled their owed tax arrears.
“Two of them were paid only today. It was a little stressful, I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to go to tax sale, and we didn’t. So I just wanted to give that good news that they are all paid up.”
Without further comments from council, Coun. Charlene Preston’s motion to accept the verbal report for information carried.
