Fire Services Bylaw amendments passed by council

Justin Seward
Commentator/Courier

Cypress County council began their hour long regular public meeting by passing all three readings of for Bylaw 2019/11 to amend Bylaw 2018/33 (Fire Services bylaw) on April 23.
Amendments included under Section 4.3, where there is the deletion of the fire chief appointing station clerks, officers and members. Section 9. 1 will have the addition of the Chief Administrative Officer now consulting with the fire chief and having the discretion to allow fire departments to be issued between March 1 and Oct. 31. when conditions are appropriate.
Section 10.5 will now state fire restrictions or fire bans will incude all areas within Cypress County and the deletion of them being imposed in one or more than one fire district area.

Alberta Environment and Parks invoice cancellation
Council approved to uphold Alberta Parks invoice amount of $9,215.
The county invoiced AEP that amount, which went unpaid and the parks had asked the invoice to be cancelled and the current agreed upon fee of $33,000 be honoured.

Hamlet street lights

Council approved the motion to direct administration to research the availability of LED street light conversion programs and available funding opportunities for the hamlets.

Hilda raw water well.

Council voted to receive the Hilda raw water well report for information.
The upgrade cost estimates to under tae the work internally including specialized skills if required and sunk costs would be $71,000. Fully trained internal county staff would complete the project in two to three years.
However, the impact of doing the project in house would have been a savings of $36,000, delaying the start of the project to as much as two years, and limited risk of losing a good standing with Alberta Environment and Parks and the current water well fails after a failure at a primary river well.
The lowest third party quote came in at $84,000 plus engineering costs of $15,900.
Quickway Electric was awarded the contract and will take two years to complete the rehabilitation project.
The well is maintained and in good standing with Alberta Environment and Parks anl acts as an emergency water source to treat at the Hilda water plant in the event there is a failure in raw water in take from the South Saskatchewan River.

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