Skip to content

At Morinville Council: city/town bus returns

Town council should needs to reign in its free community events to save taxpayers money, says an advisory board. Also, St. Albert bus service comes back to town.

The bus came back

Morinville residents will once again be able to catch a public bus into St. Albert (and vice-versa) starting this July.

The Town of Morinville announced Monday that it would run a pilot St. Albert-Morinville bus route this summer.

Morinville used to have a public bus to St. Albert in the form of the Morinville Interlink line, but town council cancelled it in 2010, said Tyler Edworthy, the town’s sport and recreation co-ordinator. At the same time, there are many town residents who need to get into St. Albert for services but can't or don't drive.

“We want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to get to services that they need," Edworthy said.

Morinville has long had a community bus for seniors and community programs, and the town wants to see if youths and young families are interested in using it, Edworthy said.

The plan this summer is to have the community bus (a white and grey 24-seater with “Community Bus” on the side) make two round trips a day each Monday in July and August between Morinville and St. Albert, Edworthy said. The bus will make 12 stops in Morinville (including the community cultural centre and local senior’s homes) and six in St. Albert (Walmart, Grandin Medical Centre, Village Transit Station, Fountain Park Pool, St. Albert Centre, and Servus Place), and be open to anyone.

Bus tickets will be available at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre and on the bus, and will be $8 for adults and $6 for youths and seniors. Youths under 14 must be accompanied by an adult.

The pilot runs from July 2 to Aug. 27. Call Community Services at 780-939-7839 for details.

Morinville First rules

Morinville should pull back on its support for free community events in order to save taxpayers money, says the chair of a town advisory board.

Morinville council received a report last week about a proposed Morinville First Advantage program for the town’s community events from Eva Scrimshaw, chair of the town’s community services advisory board.

Council asked the board to study a formal “Morinville First” policy for the town’s cultural events back in April. Councillors had raised concerns that town residents were being shut out of free events such as Oktoberfest by out-of-towners scooping up all the tickets. In response, administration has started limiting its tickets for free events to just town residents for the first few days of ticket sales.

The board found that the length and cost of the town’s free events had become “excessive,” and recommended that the town cut back on the number of public events it holds, Scrimshaw wrote in her report.

The board called on the town to eliminate entirely free community events such as Oktoberfest and the Snowman and French Heritage festivals in order to save taxpayers money. While entrance to these events should remain free, the town should also seek sponsors and community groups to cover the costs of these events. The events should include optional paid activities and not include free food. About 70 per cent of tickets for these events should be reserved for town residents.

The town could also create paid-admission events with free activities inside, Scrimshaw wrote. These would once again be backed by local groups or sponsors, but would not have tickets reserved for locals. Community Services could offer grants for families that could not afford the tickets.

For paid performances, the committee recommended opening ticket sales to residents a few days before the general public, possibly at a reduced rate.

Council will refer to these recommendations this fall during budget debate.

Land use tweaked

Morinville tweaked its land-use bylaws last week, but did not create rules for murals in the process.

Town council approved a long list of minor changes to Morinville’s land-use bylaw last week. The changes generally clarify matters related to fence height, landscaping, wind power, and parking.

When first presented to council in May, the bylaw proposed to allow people to put up murals in non-residential zones without a development permit. Town planning director Schaun Goodeve retracted that proposed change prior to first reading, however, saying that it had been left in the bylaw by accident and that he planned to address murals in a future round of revisions. The revised bylaw does not address murals.

The revisions mean that digital signs are now subject to limits on size and brightness but no longer have to be separated by a minimum distance. Freestanding signs can now be up to nine metres tall in certain commercial and industrial districts (up from seven), and wind generators are no longer capped at 5 kW.

Councillors Scott Richardson and Nicole Boutestein convinced council to eliminate a proposed change that would have dropped the requirement to have landscaped buffers (e.g. trees) between commercial or industrial and residential zones if there was a road between them.

Boutestein said that residents would likely be unhappy if they backed onto a commercial area without a landscaped buffer, and noted that this could become a problem as homes go up near the town’s No Frills store.

“It’s not a better change to me, it’s a worse change,” and it doesn’t seem to benefit residents, she said.

A full list of the changes can be found in the agenda package for the June 12 council meeting.


Kevin Ma

About the Author: Kevin Ma

Kevin Ma joined the St. Albert Gazette in 2006. He writes about Sturgeon County, education, the environment, agriculture, science and aboriginal affairs. He also contributes features, photographs and video.
Read more



push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks