$2.2-million surplus
Sturgeon County has more cash in the bank to guard against fires and floods following a hefty surplus from last year.
County council held a series of votes Tuesday to divvy up the roughly $2.2-million surplus left over from 2018.
Council heard the surplus (the exact size of which would be determined next month by auditors) was the result of extra cash from investments, supplementary taxes, assessment services provided to the province and the sale of road right-of-way to industry in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland. The county also spent $300,000 less than expected on gravel and dust control, and $1.5 million less on salaries due to vacant positions. Offsetting these savings were higher-than-expected road repair costs and grants.
Council voted to shunt the cash from the sale of right-of-way to industry ($259,785) to the Heartland Mitigation Strategy reserve, which is meant to address the impacts of industrialization on residents in the Heartland.
Another $318,000 went to the severe weather reserve to address road maintenance such as wash-outs, raising the reserve to its target level of $418,000. Some $525,000 went into the extraordinary fire and disaster recovery reserve, which previously sat empty.
Council voted 6-1 to put the rest of the money into general operating reserves, with Coun. Neal Comeau opposed. County corporate support general manager Rick Wojtkiw said he would bring back options this April on how that cash could be used to pay off debt.
Oil is back
County residents will once again be able to spray their roads with oil for dust control – if they can afford it.
County council voted Tuesday to approve a new dust control policy that includes oil as an alternative to calcium chloride.
Residents used to be able to pay the county to spray oil on gravel roads to control dust, but the county stopped doing so in 2010 because of the cost. Several councillors, particularly Coun. Patrick Tighe, have advocated for the return of oil, citing demand from residents.
Transportation services manager Gary Mayhew said the county would now offer oil treatment on request for a net cost of $4,165 per 100-metre site – about 10 times what the equivalent calcium chloride treatment costs. (Oil generally lasts longer than a year, while calcium is reapplied annually.) Administration would guarantee the treatment for the year it was applied and patch potholes on it after, but residents would have to pay for a fresh application if the road broke up afterwards. About 58 people had expressed an interest in this treatment so far.
The new policy also allows administration to explore other forms of dust control. Mayhew said he was thinking about doing trials with crude oil, used canola oil and magnesium chloride, which were being tested in Leduc County.
Tighe said residents had called for this change for four years and it was long overdue.
Father’s House approved
County council has given a Christian school the go-ahead to set up shop in the basement of the church that was moved from St. Albert to just outside of Morinville last year.
Council voted Tuesday to approve a development permit for The Father’s House Christian Fellowship to operate a K-to-9 school in the basement of their church near the Highway 2 and 642 intersection west of Morinville. (The church is on land zoned direct control, which means council, not administration, approves any development permits for it.)
The church building itself is the former King of Kings Lutheran Church in St. Albert, and was moved to its current home in 2018.
The private school, which currently has 45 students, is currently run out of the strip mall across from the A&W in Morinville. It was one of the 28 schools Alberta Education Minister David Eggen ordered last fall to either comply with the Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances by June 30 or lose funding. It has yet to carry out this order, Alberta Education officials confirmed this week.
The permit caps the school at 100 students and allows it to run from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday from September to June. It requires the church to complete a rail crossing assessment and an emergency evacuation plan, and may require a road-use agreement if it causes traffic problems (the school will not have busing).
Seed loan forgiven
County council brought a 10-year saga to a close Tuesday by forgiving the rest of its loan to the Morinville seed cleaning plant.
Council voted unanimously to refund the $16,698.98 loan payment the Morinville Municipal Seed Cleaning Co-Op made last year and to waive its loan payment for this year.
The decision means the county has now forgiven the entire $150,000 loan it gave the plant in 2009.
The plant requested and received forgiveness on its loan payments each year from 2010 to 2017, but actually made a payment in 2018. When the co-op suggested back in January putting that cash and the 2019 payment toward strategic planning, administration proposed hiring a $60,000 consultant with the cash, which would require an additional $26,600 from the county.
Councillors balked at the idea, which led to the current plan to refund and forgive the last two loan payments and let the co-op use the money for business or marketing plans. Council also asked administration to sign a new deal with the co-op, as the current one is 40 years old.
