County council holds public hearing for road allowance, appoints agricultural inspectors

Posted on June 15, 2023 by Ryan Dahlman

By Anna Smith
Commentator/Courier

While the intensity of meetings have begun to wind down for the summer, the importance of matters in the Cypress County Council chamber have not.

The June 6 meeting opened with a public hearing for the Road Closure of an Undeveloped Road Allowance, on behalf of Gas City Metals. The landowner’s intention is to market the lands for sale.

While an initial motion was made to postpone the decision to a later meeting, the motion was defeated, as was the later motion to accept the application.

Council received a delegation from APEX Regional Innovation Network, a collaborative partnership with Alberta Innovates and Community Futures Entrecorp. The purpose of the delegation was for information on the services that they could offer to companies within the County.

Following the delegation, Council directed administration to pursue ideas for a potential partnership with APEX in regards to addressing fire loads in the Cypress Hills area.

The annual appointment of the Agricultural Services Inspectors took place, appointing several seasonal staff for the year as weed and pest inspectors.

Administration is to submit a cancellation of Road Plan 231 0368 to Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors, to be consolidated into the adjacent title.

Council was presented with an updated policy in regards to formalizing the sponsorship of the naming of county buildings and infrastructure. The policy hopes to clarify the naming requirements, submission and selection process, signage, donor recognition, and more.

It was assured that this policy would mean that the board room in the upcoming Irvine Community Resource Centre would still be named after the Woodward Family, and the goal is simply to provide a clear outline on what would be required for infrastructure to be named. There was previously no policy in place.

Council appointed Wade Watson, Todd Read, and Nigel Pimblett to the Weed Act Appeal Committee, and the same six councillors as previous to the Agricultural Pest Act Appeal Committee.

Alberta Emergency Management Agency was noted to recognize the critical role that municipal fire services can play in large scale wildfires. When municipalities are requested to support firefighting efforts there is compensation back to the local municipality. A motion was passed to allocate future surplus less expenditures from all Wildland Urban Interface deployments to the Fire & Emergency Services Equipment Replacement Fund.