All right, it is 8:30 and so I'm going
to call to order the council meeting of
September 9th.
Um,
we have an agenda in front of us and I
know
One of our counselors is tied up at this
moment and I'm going to guess that she
might want to add something in council
committee reports on kneehill housing.
So I'm going to put a placeholder in
there for her.
So that' be 9.1.
And I have an addition in close session
um which will be 11.2 two
intergovernmental relations uh under
section uh 26
when they access information.
Any other Sure. Councelor Cunningham.
>> I'll just add division five update
» I'll just add division five update
please for council and committee reports
>> 9.2.
» 9.2.
>> Thank you.
» Any others? Councelor Christie
>> quick report on community futures
community futures 9.3
any other additions to the agenda uh
deputy ei
>> quick division one
» quick division one
report
>> 9.4 Four
» 9.4 Four
division one
9.5 is harvest report
which is foremost in all of our minds.
Any other additions to the agenda?
Council Christie.
>> If not I'll move the agenda as amended.
» If not I'll move the agenda as amended.
>> Okay. Thank you for that. So I have a
» Okay. Thank you for that. So I have a
motion to approve the agenda as amended.
All those in favor
and that is carried unanimously. Thank
you. The regular meeting minutes from
August 26th were pre-irculated.
Are there any um addition or any
corrections? Any comment on those?
If not, would someone care to move their
adoption? Councelor Penner,
>> I'd move the approval of adoption of the
» I'd move the approval of adoption of the
minutes of the August 26, 2025 regular
council meeting as presented.
>> Okay, thank you for that. So, we have a
» Okay, thank you for that. So, we have a
motion to approve the council minutes
from the August 26th meeting as
presented. All those in favor?
And that's also carried unanimous. Thank
you.
The first item in our agenda this
morning and she pre-warned us that she
was coming is 5.1.1
which is policy 51 review of planning
and development fees and welcome
arb Hazelton
and anytime you're ready.
>> Good morning Reeve members of council.
» Good morning Reeve members of council.
So just as part of the normal rotation
for reviewing policies, this is being
brought to council with a couple of
minor changes for your review. This
policy was put in place to ensure a
consistent approach to processing
applications and any refunds that might
be provided based on where the
application is in the process. This
policy was last reviewed by council in
May of 2021. We have removed one clause
under refunds and revised the clause
following it which now notes refunds or
partial refunds for the applications
that have gone through the majority of
the process would require the approval
of the CAO or designate. We have also
made some formatting changes to the
numbering in the policy and it should be
noted that we rarely refund application
fees. It's not something that comes up a
lot. Um, one other item that I missed
before it got into the package. So on
the original policy number nine where it
says permitted use development permits
that are withdrawn before the permit is
issued will receive a full refund and I
missed that point in the new policy. So
I just want to swap that one over as
well but other than that um
it's
what we're proposing.
So you're suggesting there would be
under refunds then there'd be a 0.5
which would basically say correct
exactly what 0.9 says in the old policy.
>> Yes. Correct.
» Yes. Correct.
>> Okay.
» Or somewhere in that number.
>> Yes.
So, any questions
uh for planning with regard to this
proposed new uh reddraft of the planning
and development fees and refunds policy?
>> Yes, councelor Popes, please.
» Yes, councelor Popes, please.
>> Just curious to the feedback from the
» Just curious to the feedback from the
public when um they come in to do the
process and then it gets denied and they
don't get their funding back. So has
there been a lot of push back from
>> No, people are aware of that upfront. So
» No, people are aware of that upfront. So
it's it's gone through the process.
We've done all the work. So it's
>> perfect. Thank you.
» perfect. Thank you.
>> We've never even had anyone ask I don't
» We've never even had anyone ask I don't
believe for that funding.
» Any other questions or comment?
» Counc
nothing to do with this. This is just to
do with your department and kudos to you
guys because it's everything we hear is
very positive when it comes to planning.
I've never heard a negative um to do
with planning to be honest with you with
with the ladies and the gentlemen now.
Um so thank you for making our job
easier.
>> Thank you.
» Thank you.
>> You probably don't hear that from us
» You probably don't hear that from us
very often that you're making our job
easier,
>> but you do.
» but you do.
Penner is correct.
Okay. If there are no questions or
comments, I would look for a motion to
um approve the proposed policy
uh 5.1.
Deputy Reed McGee,
>> I move that we approve the draft policy
» I move that we approve the draft policy
5-1 with the amendment mentioned.
>> Okay.
» Okay.
So we have a motion to approve uh draft
policy 5.1
um as amended. So that's planning and
development fees and refunds.
Any further question or comment?
Not I'm going to ask a question. All
those in favor
and that is carried unanimously. Thank
you Miss Hazelton.
Next in our agenda is 5.1.2
which is a request to amend land use by
law county residential district and
welcome Miss Kever.
>> Good morning.
» Good morning.
>> Good morning. Um, Michael and Stephanie
» Good morning. Um, Michael and Stephanie
Beach had applied to amend land use
bylaw 1808 by adding a new discretionary
use to the country residential district
that they wish to add M greenhouse
seasonal to the country residential
district in which they reside. A new
definition was also drafted to match the
use. The applicants were unaware when
they purchased their property that a
greenhouse which was selling flowers and
other products were doing so without any
applicable permits. Under the MGA,
applications to amend the land use bylaw
requires a public hearing to be held
prior to adopting the bylaw. First
reading of this proposed bylaw amendment
was given on July 22nd, 2025. This was
the mechanism for getting the
application in the queue. All
information and questions regarding the
application were brought forward to the
public hearing held on August 26, 2025.
And as per the MJ, council must hear any
person or group of people who claim to
be affected by a proposed bylaw. Any
land owner who feels they will be
impacted by a proposed development
either positively or negatively has the
opportunity to come and speak about the
matter directly at the public hearing.
Affected parties could also submit their
comments in writing. It should be noted
at this time also that no letters in
opposition were received. As council
reviews and discusses the content of the
public hearing, it can approve, amend,
or defeat the proposed bylaw.
Participating in the public hearing is
the legislative method to provide your
comments to council for consideration.
Once a public hearing is closed, no
additional information should be
considered in the decision-making
process. This amendment is about adding
a discretionary use. It is not a permit
to develop. If successful in their
application, specific details regarding
the development will be required to be
submitted and approved by the municipal
planning commission. The applicant has
indicated as per their letter of intent
they purchased this property unaware
they would not be able to operate a
greenhouse for two months of the year.
Administration is proposing the land use
bylaw amendment as an opportunity for
council to consider this additional use
which would allow the applicant to
continue using the existing facilities
on a seasonal basis not to exceed 3
months as per the definition for a
greenhouse seasonal.
» Okay, thank you for that miss. Are there
any questions for the planner regarding
this
addition of
discretionary use
» deputy McGee?
I'd like to make the motion that council
give second reading of proposed bylaw
1923 for the purpose of amending land
use bylaw 1808 by adding greenhouse
seasonal to the discretionary uses in
the country residential district.
>> Okay, thank you for that. So, we do have
» Okay, thank you for that. So, we do have
a motion um to provide second reading to
the proposed bylaw of 1923
[Music]
uh for the purpose of amending the land
use bylaw 1808 by adding M greenhouse
seasonal to the discretionary uses in
country residential district.
Any further discussion?
Okay, I'm not seeing any. I'm Oh, sorry.
Councelor was just a question. In this
instance, we're giving them two months.
Um, is there an opportunity for this?
Sorry. Go ahead.
>> Oh, sorry. Through the chair. The
» Oh, sorry. Through the chair. The
definition says three months.
>> Okay. But they're looking at two months.
» Okay. But they're looking at two months.
Okay. So, we're going to make the
decision on which three months or they
they pick the three months.
>> They they can pick the three months.
» They they can pick the three months.
It's going to be a little hard to police
and enforce. I I hope um we just won't
have to worry about that. I I guess one
comment was um brought up
it doesn't have to be consecutive. So if
they have a really good strong two
months and then they wish to sell
poinsettas in December, you know, that'd
be a monthish like um we're not going to
be going 90 days exactly, but hopefully
we can use our discretion. And then also
if we did, it is complaintbased. So, if
we did receive complaints that, oh, no,
they're like six months of the year.
Well, then we would have to look at it
again.
>> Okay. No, that's just what I was trying
» Okay. No, that's just what I was trying
Oh, sorry.
>> Go ahead.
» Go ahead.
>> I I was just trying to determine if it
» I I was just trying to determine if it
had to be consecutive or if you could
split it up. So, you've answered my
question. Thank you.
» All right. Is there any other comment or
question uh with regard to the motion to
give second reading to proposed bylaw
1923 for the purpose of amending land
use bylaw 1808
by adding m greenhouse seasonal to the
discretionary uses in country
residential district?
If there's not I'm going to call the
question. All those in favor
and that is carried unanimously. Thank
you. Council
Witstone,
I would move the council give third
reading to bylaw 1923 for the purpose of
amending land use bylaw 1808 by adding M
greenhouse seasonal to discretionary
uses in the county res county
residential district.
Okay, thank you for that.
All right. So, we have a motion from
councelor Witstock that we give third
reading to bylaw 1923,
which is basically adding greenhouse
seasonal to discretionary uses in the
country residential district. Any
further discussion?
Okay, I'm not seeing any, so I'm going
to call the question. All those in
favor?
And that is also carried unanimously.
Thank you, Miss Kever. I also know that
you're not leaving us just yet because
you are also taking 5.1.3
which is direct control district 2 42-
no sorry 2-42
4247-25
oh my goodness D-B
rear yard setback varants. So anytime
you're ready. That's quite a mouthful.
>> Yes it is.
» Yes it is.
Uh, Lidell Juke has applied for 40% rear
yard setback variance for the proposed
construction of a new garage within a
portion of the southeast of 272820
plan 1000965
block 1, lot one. The location of this
proposed is within the direct control
district 2. This parcel of land was
reszoned to direct control in order to
accommodate the subdivision of an
additional parcel not allowed within the
planning documents at that time. As per
land use bylaw 18081064C,
the municipal planning commission shall
review development proposals within a
direct control district and provide
comments and recommendations that will
be forwarded to council. A garage
accessory building is a permitted use in
the DC2. However, variances over 20%
require municipal planning commission
approval. This application was brought
to the August 28th MPC meeting and was
approved with conditions. The DC2 direct
district development standards are to be
determined by council or its delegate.
In this case, since the zoning of this
parcel was zoned agriculture prior to
the zoning of DC2, and they are the most
relevant standards for this parcel and
situation, the agricultural district
sighting regulations were recommended.
The rear yard setback in the egg
district is 7.6 6 m or 25 ft and the
landowner wishes to construct a new
garage 4.57 m or 15 ft from the rear
property line. The reasons for the
request are due to the location of the
septic tank and treatment mound as well
as a mature stand of trees. The
accessory building is being proposed on
the north side of the yard site where
two smaller buildings previously were
situated.
Since this application has already been
recommended for approval by the
municipal planning commission, it is
assumed that council will approve with
conditions which are attached and the
adjacent land owner to the north had no
objections to this relaxation.
» Okay, thank you for that.
Are there any questions for Miss Kever
regarding the application for the
variance
in this direct control district?
» Okay. Then what's the wish of council?
» Councelor Christie. I'd make the motion
to approve application 4247-25-d
for the 40% variance from the rear yard
setback for a proposed accessory
building with conditions attached.
>> Okay, thank you.
So, we do have a motion that um we
approve the application 4247-25-D
for 40% variance from a rear yard
setback for a proposed accessory
building which is a garage
with conditions and the conditions are
listed in the RFD and those are the
conditions that were approved by the
municipal planning commission.
>> Correct.
» Correct.
>> The applicant has already um received
» The applicant has already um received
approval from Alberta Transportation
Economic Corridors as well.
>> Okay. Thank you for that. Any further
» Okay. Thank you for that. Any further
discussion or questions regarding the
motion to approve?
If not, I'm going to call the question.
All those in favor
and that is carried unanimously. So,
thank you, Miss Kever.
Um,
appreciate your assistance this morning.
All right. The
next item in our agenda
is 5.3.1,
which is RCMP versus fire hockey game
support.
Um, and Mr. Ganon, I'm going to assume
that you're taking Miss Knight's place
and that you're going to make this
presentation.
>> Uh, good morning, council. Yes, I am.
» Uh, good morning, council. Yes, I am.
Thank you very much. Uh the manager uh
um provides her regrets for not being
able to be here today. Uh but
regardless, we're excited to present
this to council for an opportunity. Um
the RCMP detachment has hosted
fundraisers in the past and and
specifically in 2023 at the local uh
group uh with a hockey game between the
RCMP and fire departments. These are
synonymous around a lot of communities
and bring a lot of great people
together. an opportunity of fun and
engagement within the communities.
Knowing this, the fundraiser is being
kicked off again by the Three Hills
Detachment. Uh but they've invited all
the other departments to participate to
ensure that it is kind of a countywide
aspect and be able to bring everybody
together. So, it was really nice of them
to actually take the initiative and then
look at this. uh the fire chief's
committee uh uh meeting held in August.
Actually, the chiefs have requested if
Neihill County could actually sponsor
this and a way to provide hockey jerseys
uh with all the departments within the
with the logo that you see within the
report. This logo was designed and
worked with for uh the stair climbing
event which was which the county
participated in uh which was great for
the team. It's good for team building
and it's good for the county to get
recognition in other communities just to
show how these great people work uh and
provide services for us. So with that um
we're always in favor with
administration on providing that
opportunity to come forward and
promotion and creating that teamwork
aspect uh as it is important in these
type of roles and functions. The
fundraiser this year I want to point on
is for Kneeh Hill kids sports being held
October 22nd at 7:30 at the Three Hills
Arena.
Um the the sponsor for the firefighting
teams with the jersey for annual use.
So, we're looking at a annual
opportunity to do this and we'll
incorporate it into our budget to ensure
that it is covered and it's a minor cost
I believe um for what's actually being
proposed. So, at this time they're
looking for uh an estimated $2,000 range
for the jerseys and they'll be replaced
depending on wear and tear. I've seen
this operate in many different ways in
different communities. A lot of times
they'll make jerseys every year and then
they'll change them a little bit every
year to make them more about the event
and it creates people a keepsake to take
home with them that they participate in
things like this. How the team is
looking at this right now is actually to
reuse the jerseys every year and replace
them on wear and tear and and those type
of items. So, at this moment, council
has the opportunity to uh approve the
purchase and this program moving forward
um for $2,000. Um
and if there's any other questions, I
can do my best to answer them. Uh
obviously, this initiative was uh
pronounced at the fire chief meeting. I
wasn't present, but I I have uh um been
given a briefing and and hopefully I can
provide you some additional
clarification should you require it.
Thank you, Mr. Ganon. Are there any
questions for Mr. Ganon regarding this
request for support?
Councelor Phobes, please.
>> Will the Nehill County logo be on the
» Will the Nehill County logo be on the
jerseys?
>> Thank you. Uh through the chair, if you
» Thank you. Uh through the chair, if you
look at the logo that's up there, uh on
the actual presentation, it shows all
fire departments. So, it says NHL County
Firefighters. Instead of stair climbing
team, it will actually have hockey team
on it. Um, but all those individual
logos are on it.
>> Thank you.
» Okay. Any further questions
um or discussion related to the request
that's in front of us?
Uh, Councelor Penner, please.
>> I just comment. that I have seen this
» I just comment. that I have seen this
done in, you know, what this event, you
know what I mean? I think it's great
that they work together and whatnot. I
could get behind this um for a one time
um where they reuse the jerseys. I think
that's uh that's my opinion. Um just a I
can make it a motion, but I just want to
make sure the rest of council is fine
with that.
So, basically what we would be approving
at this point is a one-time
$2,000 maximum $2,000
um from the protective services
operating budget. Correct, Mr. G?
>> Uh correct. There's there's also the
» Uh correct. There's there's also the
opportunity if you want or if you if
council should uh should choose that we
could do this annually. We believe that
this is going to be an annual event and
should it be an annual event, we can
actually put it in the budget for
consideration for future years. We do
have available budget space to cover
this year's amount. So, um the current
budget will absorb can absorb the cost
for the remainder of the year. Um so
there's multiple choices. If you give
administration the authority to do this
on a yearly basis should it come up,
we'll ensure it's in the budget. Uh, and
if it doesn't participate, it just goes
back into um, uh, the surplus.
» Okay. Any other discussion? Um, comment.
Councelor Phobes, please.
>> I'm in favor of what you're saying as
» I'm in favor of what you're saying as
well. Um, councelor Penner, I would like
to see it yearly. Let the new council
decide if that should be something in
the new budget coming forward.
>> Okay. Thank you for that.
» Okay. Thank you for that.
Go ahead, councelor Penner.
>> Um, today we're just looking at the
» Um, today we're just looking at the
jerseys, correct? And that should
that'll cover a set of jerseys, what
you're saying. Um,
>> yes,
» yes,
>> absolutely. We should support this event
» absolutely. We should support this event
going forward, but it may only be a
couple hundred dollars going forward or
whatever, whatever the event is, you
know. Um, I don't think that Miho County
needs to be the only one on the hook for
this. So, um, so here today, um, I would
make the motion that we approve
purchasing hockey jerseys for the NIH
firefighter team for the RCMP versus the
fire hockey game versus fire hockey game
fundraiser to a maximum of $2,000 with
funds from the protective services
operating budget.
>> Okay. Thank you, councelor Penner. Are
» Okay. Thank you, councelor Penner. Are
there any comments? Deputy Reed McGee.
I'm I'm concerned about us putting in
that it's for the fundraiser because I'd
like to see these jerseys to be used for
whatever might come up.
Um so I'm I'm not sure what we want to
do with that, but I understand that's
the intent that they're not going to be
used for this one event. Correct.
>> Uh through the chair. So it it does open
» Uh through the chair. So it it does open
opportunities depending on other
fundraising opportunities and I think
that protective services can work with
the fire departments and work on how
they're going to be reallocated or
reused for um different events
potentially. Um the and that may be the
strategy that we can go forward instead
of saying hockey team on it. We can
actually just leave that blank. So
should they choose for a different
event, it actually can be used for those
different events.
>> I'd be much more comfortable with that.
» Those are better.
>> Um I I like that idea. I mean, they
» Um I I like that idea. I mean, they
could put in a curling team or something
like that. They could wear them, you
know. So sure, not that it's part of the
motion, but I like your idea. Thank you.
Any
other comment
McGee?
>> So I I just when it comes to voting, I'd
» So I I just when it comes to voting, I'd
be much more comfortable if we took out
for the firefighters
fundraiser. So um purchase hockey
jerseys for the Mihill firefighters
team. Period.
» Well, it does say for the hockey game
and other
Okay, that's good. Y
>> thanks for the change. Yeah.
» thanks for the change. Yeah.
>> So I think with the change it
» So I think with the change it
expresses that it's for more than
» so council Penner is the motion is now
that council approve purchasing of
hockey jerseys for the kneehill
firefighters team for the RCMP versus
fire hockey game and other uses to a
maximum of $2,000.
with funds from the protective services
operating budget.
You okay with that?
>> Okay. All right. Any further discussion
» Okay. All right. Any further discussion
or comment related to the sponsorship
that's being proposed here and the
motion?
So, I'm not seeing any. So, my
assumption is that you're ready for the
question. So I'm going to say all those
in favor.
There are none. So it's carried
unanimously.
>> Thank you, Mr. Ganon.
» Thank you, Mr. Ganon.
>> Okay, we have a delegation at nine. So
» Okay, we have a delegation at nine. So
I'm going to say we're in recess for 3
minutes to allow whatever setup needs to
take place for that delegation
uh to be here.
So, it's 9:01 and I'll call our meeting
back to order. At this point, we have a
delegation and um our presenter is um
Dr. Am I correct? Dr. Blake Schaefer.
He's an associate professor of economics
at the University of Calgary and a
co-director of the net zero electrics
electricity research initiative
and co-director of Canadian energy
modeling hub. Wow, sounds like you're a
busy man. Uh so welcome uh Dr. Schaefer.
Appreciate you coming today and we look
forward to hearing what you have to say
about um our electric system. Um before
I get you started on your presentation,
I will allow council and uh members of
administration to introduce themselves
to you so you're kind of aware of who
you're chatting with this morning. So
councelor Cunningham, if you would
please.
>> Good morning, Lori Michelle Cunningham,
» Good morning, Lori Michelle Cunningham,
Division 5. Thanks so much for taking
the time to come out and chat with us
today.
>> Morning, Dr. Blake. Uh Jerry Witstock,
» Morning, Dr. Blake. Uh Jerry Witstock,
division three. That's the Acme Lindon
area, southwest corner of the county.
Good morning, Debbie Penna. I'm in the
Swall Area, straight south the streets
here.
>> And good morning. I'm Ken King. I
» And good morning. I'm Ken King. I
represent division 7, which is the very
northeast portion of Neo County. So,
kind of the town of Tro north from
there.
>> Good morning. I'm F McGee. I am from
» Good morning. I'm F McGee. I am from
Division One. It kind of goes to the
southeast, which would um come right up
to the borders of Drum Hill area.
Good morning, Carrie Phobes, Division 4.
>> Morning, Wayne Christie. I'm division 6
» Morning, Wayne Christie. I'm division 6
from the Northwest and we're the most
energy efficient on that corner of the
country.
» Morning, Blake. Mike Hogan, chief
administrative officer.
>> Morning, Blake. Carolyn Vener,
» Morning, Blake. Carolyn Vener,
legislative services manager.
>> Good morning, Kevin Ganon, director of
» Good morning, Kevin Ganon, director of
community services.
>> Good morning, Mike Zer, director of
» Good morning, Mike Zer, director of
infrastructure.
>> One more. Sorry. Good morning. Theresa
» One more. Sorry. Good morning. Theresa
Cochran, director of corporate services.
>> So, welcome um Dr. Schaefer and uh if
» So, welcome um Dr. Schaefer and uh if
you want to just uh go right into your
presentation, you can tell us a little
bit about who you are and what it is you
do as well as the presentation that you
brought for us today. We look forward to
that. So, welcome here.
>> Well, do thank you very much. I'll just
» Well, do thank you very much. I'll just
push this back record. Um yeah, thank
you for the opportunity to come today.
Thank you for the invite, Carolyn. It
was a was a lovely drive out this
September morning. Um, I'll throw the
caveat on the doctor. If anyone's not
feeling well, I'm not the person to come
see. So, my my wife reminds me of that
quite frequently. Going to have a
lengthy discussion with you or
something. Um, so the topic that
Caroline and Mike set out was just
simply uh an update and a a discussion
on what's going on with Alberta's
electricity system because there has
been so many changes in the past 10
years. Uh, so I've prepared a a brief
talk just with some high level overview.
I don't know the level of what you guys
uh know and don't know. So, some of it
may be old hat, but really I'd love to
just flow into conversation because I
think that's the best part. I think
that's the most interesting part. Feel
free to interrupt me as we go through.
We can we can have discussion there and
if we're if we're straying too far, I'll
pull it back into finish the
presentation and we'll go from there.
So, so my background, um I like to use
this photo. I try to own it because this
is a good example of uh why we should
have media training. Uh this was my
probably one of my first interviews I
did and uh the person from Calgary
Herald said, "Let's get some some by
line shots uh some B-roll for you. We'll
do it around some electricity
infrastructure." And I was pointing out
some transmission lines. And he said,
"Well, I've got an extension cord in my
truck." And he asked me to hold it. And
then that was on the uh front page of
the Calgary Herald and I I have to live
that down. So I've decided to just own
it.
>> Own it. Um so my current role I'm an
» Own it. Um so my current role I'm an
associate professor at the University of
Calgary uh in the department of
economics. My focus is on energy
markets, energy economics with a real
focus on electricity. Um, uh, like Reef
King said, I'm the director of Canada's
energy modeling hub, which is an open
source modeling initiative to ring
together all of Canada's, um, modeling
entities to improve the quality of our
energy data to try to match that of the
United States, which has sufficiently
significantly better energy modeling
capability than Canada has, sadly. So,
that's been going on for five years now.
We've just renewed for another five.
It's a large project uh funded by
Natural Resources Canada. I'm a regular
policy advisor for multiple governments,
government of Canada, uh government of
Alberta, government BC, um Saskatchewan,
some municipalities as well. I was late
in life to to academia. I've been a
professor for five years. Um most of my
career I was in electricity trading or
energy trading more broadly. Um focus on
electricity, natural gas, emissions
markets. I started my career at BC
Hydro. Um Lehman isn't something really
to brag about, but I I was at Lehman
Brothers and Barkclay's Capital in in
New York. Um and then I was head trader
at Transalta, which is the largest power
company here in Alberta.
So outline of today's talk. I'll just
give you um some overview things you may
already know just how much Alberta's
market is changing, what those changes
really look like with some data and some
charts. And then really I want to focus
on what's next. So what are the
challenges and opportunities um for
Albertans for our power system? And then
a little segue into is Alberta's market
design, our power market design up to
the task. going to just briefly overview
some of those significant changes.
You've may have heard of the
restructured energy market that the grid
operator has been working on uh for
several years now. I was part of the
formation of those discussions. I I I
stepped to the side as they continued,
but they've come to a final design and I
can talk through um some of the
highlights of what that design looks
like and what that might mean for NIH
County.
Okay. So Alberta's electricity system is
changing and and quickly. So this is a
chart that goes up to 2015 and you can
see that that bottom dark gray area is
is coal generation in the mix and you
see just how dominant coal was. If we go
back into the '9s we were almost
entirely coal production uh coal power
production in our province. uh around
2000 with the growth of the oil sands
you see that light gla light gray sliver
uh enlarging quite a bit that's
co-generation largely natural gas
co-generation so by co-generation simply
we're we're burning a fuel we really
want that heat uh for sagd oil
production but since we have that heat
we'll run it through a gas turbine or a
steam turbine and produce some power at
the same time okay natural gas actually
pure natural gas generation you can see
through that period is is actually not
that large. There's a slight enlargement
at 2015 when the Shepard gas plant in
Calgary came in, but natural gas purely
for power generation wasn't as
significant as co-generation and coal.
At the top you see those other slivers
that we have here. Hydro was our
original power source in the province um
continues to to go along but a
relatively small size. No changes to the
amount of production there. We just get
our seasonal variation. uh biomass is in
there and you start to see that sliver
of wind and solar and really during this
period it's pretty much entirely wind
update a few years later and apologies
this chart only goes to 2022 didn't
update it today um but you see that
rapid demise in in coal and you also see
a change where that went so an expansion
of that natural gas generation and by
and large that was conversion of the
large coal plants to be simple cycle
steam turbine natural gas plants. So
really just changing the feed stock on
those power plants. We're going to burn
natural gas instead of coal but keep
most of the power infrastructure the
same. So you see that large expansion in
natural gas and you start to see that
growth in wind and solar uh by that
green area increasing.
I like to show this one just to really
show how dramatic this change has been.
I think you know I I I was I've been
involved at various levels of policy
work and I was trading throughout this
period as well and the idea of
eliminating coal in its entirety in
Alberta in this time frame was often
viewed as unrealistic and you can see
why you know we you go back 20 years and
80% of our generation comes from coal
power. So to think about a wholesale
change where that goes to zero is
seemingly fantasy. um even 2015 when
those uh large changes under that the
then NDP government came in under the
climate leadership plan to talk about
going to zero by 2030 was viewed as
fantasy when you had 50% of the
generation coming from coal and you see
just how quickly that fell off. Okay.
And it was in early 2024 that we
shuttered our last generation from coal.
So what what happened to do that? kind
of talked through a few things, but
there was a coal phase out on the books.
There was a policy to phase out coal by
2030. That became redundant. That wasn't
binding. Really, the the biggest
influence on driving out coal was
changes to how the carbon price was set
for large emitters. So, not the the
carbon tax that gets all the attention
that is no longer here in the province
nor the country, but the large emitter
carbon price. The changes that occurred
there are really what drove off coal
made it uneconomic relative to anything
else. Uh cheap gas got cheaper and
renewables got cheaper. We'll go into
that. And the renewables program which
was contracts from the government to
derisk them as well. Couple that with
falling costs of renewables made those
even more competitive.
Here's something on the on the carbon
cost. Okay, these numbers here are in
dollars per megawatt hour. If you want
to convert to cents per kilowatt hour
that we're more familiar with, just move
the decimal one to the left and it's the
same thing. So those $18.990 ledge
$18.90 is 1.89
uh cents per kilowatt hour. What we have
here is the is the carbon cost for a
coal generator in Alberta. So in 2007,
Alberta put in the specified gas
emitters regulation. We're actually the
first jurisdiction in Canada to put in a
a carbon tax even before BC. And this
applied to large emitters in the
province, but it was set in such a way,
even though it was $15 a ton, it was
only set relative to a benchmark on your
specific facility.
So what that means in practice is if
you're quite a mission intensive quote
unquote dirty facility, you actually
have quite a high benchmark. So the cost
to you wouldn't actually be that great.
Okay. So if you're emitting here, um the
benchmark would be set at say 88% of
that. It's really that 12% differential
that you're exposed to. And so for a
coal plant, that meant about a $180 per
megawatt hour was the cost. Put that
against an average power price of around
$60 per megawatt hour or 6 cents in the
province, which is the long-term
average. This is not a really
significant cost. Okay. So it it added
up. It was a cost they incurred, but it
really didn't change the needle on
shifting uh generation to other sources.
In 2015, a few changes were made. First,
they started increasing that carbon
price. So, from $15 a ton, moving it up
to $30 per ton. They also, most
importantly, started moving that
benchmark. So, rather than 88% of your
emissions protected, they dropped it to
80. But then the big change occurred in
2018 and the UCP government actually
continued with this new policy. This was
one of the ones they carried on uh one
of the few maybe they carried on um was
to change the benchmark not to be based
on your facility but sectorwide. So the
benchmark would be roughly what a
combined cycle natural gas plant would
be. And what that means in practice is a
combined cycle natural gas plant would
pay zero carbon cost. Okay, zero carbon
tax. A coal plant would pay on the
difference between its emissions and
that natural gas plant which is about
60% greater. And then something clean or
something non-emitting like hydro, wind,
solar, nuclear if we had it, collects
the difference. Okay, so it's really
rather than setting the benchmark at
zero and charging everybody for
emissions, they set the benchmark at
something moderately emitting, charge
above and collect below.
Coal being well above that benchmark,
you can see what happened to their cost.
So by 2022, when I stopped making this
chart, uh it was at $31 a megawatt hour.
It's roughly half the power cost. So it
becomes very quickly economic to switch
that to natural gas and avoid that $30
cost. Jerry
>> Celto, you have a question.
» Celto, you have a question.
>> Yes, I do. Thank you very much for the
» Yes, I do. Thank you very much for the
information. So the coal cup okay the
emissions from coal uh that money was
paid to who?
>> So the way that works is
» So the way that works is
uh they have to go and either pay at the
till they go go to the government and
pay or they have to buy emissions
performance credits from anything that's
below the benchmark. That could be from
something in the power sector that's
emitting less. It could be from oil
sands companies that are below their
benchmarks.
>> Okay. So, what I'm getting at here is
» Okay. So, what I'm getting at here is
who paid was the consumer.
>> In the end, the consumer paid it.
» In the end, the consumer paid it.
>> Not necessarily. So, this that's a great
» Not necessarily. So, this that's a great
question. So, the reason for setting the
benchmark at the level of natural gas is
the way power prices are set uh at a
wholesale level in Alberta. It's going
to be rather complex. uh at a wholesale
level is set based on the last generator
that's needed to produce the level of
power that we need in the province.
Typically, that's a natural gas plant.
And so these coal costs would happen
what we call inframarginally. They're
relatively low marginal costs. That cost
happened uh rises on them, but typically
it's a natural gas plant that's setting
the price in Alberta. And so the the
design of this structure to
change the baseline from zero to
something like natural gas means the
pass through to consumers
it was relatively small from this. I've
actually done a lot of I've done some um
peer-reviewed published work on what the
impact of the carbon price was. Um
overall less than a cent per kilowatt
hour was from the carbon tax. Most of
the increase we've seen was in changes
in what we call economic withholding in
the we can we can get into that if you'd
like but this is think of it as
exercising market power that was about
five cents per kilowatt hour change the
carbon price was about.7 cents and that
really is because of this um this
benchmark setting. So who pays it's the
coal companies the ones that were
producing that who wins it's anybody
below the benchmark. So, it's a transfer
within the sector and a little bit
within the province because you can use
these credits across sectors. And what
you're doing is you're you're making
more favorable economics for things that
are clean and less favorable for things
that are dirty, which is why we saw coal
exit very very quickly. Yeah, it's a
great question.
So on the that was coal on the
renewables and I did update this to to
uh yesterday uh or Friday. So here you
see the capacity of renewables. So this
isn't energy production. This is their
name plate capacity. And of course
that's very different. Um just to just
to be clear, solar generation on average
is about 20% of its capacity over the
year and wind is about 40 to 45%. Those
are rough numbers, it varies. Um but
this is the capacity in megawws of
these. And so you you see the really
dramatic uh rise in in both of these
generation sources in the province. uh
solar relatively non-existent other than
the the 15 megawatt Brooks plant for for
many many years. Suddenly we have this
large rise up to 1,800 megawatts. And
and for perspective, the the average
capacity need of the system is around
10,000 megawws. Okay, to give us some
context so you can see just how relevant
these are. And I'll show you some slides
later. Uh the province now regularly
gets up to half of our power supply
being supplied by wind and solar in some
hours. That varies greatly. Some hours
it's near zero. Uh it'll range from zero
to 50%. Okay? And we'll we'll we'll look
at that and we'll talk about what that
means in terms of variability. But just
to give you some context about just how
big this is, this isn't just an Alberta
phenomenon. Um, a really interesting
stat I heard recently was, you know, it
took decades to get our first terowatt
of solar capacity globally. So, a
terowatt being a million megawws. Uh,
you know, started back in say the 1970s,
Jimmy Carter solar panels to 2023 was
when we hit our first one terowatt.
Between 2023 and 2025, we've added
another terowatt.
Okay. So solar has now doubled in two
years.
>> That's worldwide.
» That's worldwide.
>> That's worldwide and the bulk of that is
» That's worldwide and the bulk of that is
China.
>> Okay. The bulk of that is China.
» Okay. The bulk of that is China.
>> Um but on that same trajectory we're now
» Um but on that same trajectory we're now
seeing in Africa. So in the last two
years solar capacity is soaring in in in
Africa as well as India. Um the US is
very mixed and I think you know these
next few years we're going to see a bit
of a slowdown under pressure but uh
Texas is actually where you're seeing
the most solar growth. So that same
growth chart that projection that
exponential look that like that blue
line up there we're seeing that in Texas
with solar
and I point that out. I point out Texas
to note that's not an ideological bent
for solar growth in Texas. It's a cost
story globally. how cheap these have
become. The two fastest growing assets
in the power sector globally right now
are solar photovoltaics and batteries
and batteries are now uh fast rising
faster although they're coming from a
lower standpoint than solar.
Uh here's that chart I mentioned. So
this is um uh wind, water, and solar
generation. So not capacity, but this is
generation in Alberta. The white line is
is the monthly averages I've produced
here. Um, and so you see that we're
getting up to around 25%
of Alberta's power generation
coming from these three sources.
Okay. But you can also see in that gray
line, I think I believe I can't remember
if that's daily or hourly ranges. Okay.
I think I think actually I used hourly
for this. So this is the range of hourly
shares of demand and you can see over
that period it rarely hits a full zero
and part of that is because you have
hydro in this mix. Wind and solar wind
and solar will get to zero. Um
but it gets pretty low and you can see
just how big that range is and that's
challenging for a closed relatively
closed system like Alberta to manage
those swings. Okay. when you when you
move up and down, you need other assets.
California manages most of their swings.
They have much larger swings. They'll
reach 100% of their demand served by
wind, water, solar, some hours. Um, they
manage it through transmission. They
have much larger transmission
connections to their neighbors than
Alberta does. Okay. I started my career
at BC Hydro. I'm very adept at moving
power between provinces. uh we have very
small connections relatively speaking in
Alberta to our neighboring provinces and
states.
So um I put this slide up because
everyone has uh strong opinions on
renewables. Um so I thought let's just
you know air that in the open and I'll
give you my take and um talk about both
the pros and cons.
So why is there a push for renewables? I
mean the first one is they don't emit g
greenhouse gases during production like
like any construction you you have
emissions when you're building something
that but during um during power
production you don't have emissions uh
once built their marginal cost is near
zero okay so that that cost of running
is very low and most importantly the
capital cost the cost to build them is
falling so on the right you have what's
called levelized cost and this is kind
of think of this This is the expected
average cost over the lifetime uh of a
unit. This is in dollars per megawatt
hour. And you see solar back there in
2008 2010 in the hundreds of dollars per
megawatt hour. This is right when I was
um in the middle of my trading career
and we had
deals or requests to do uh renewable
transactions and I'd look at them saying
the power production is intermittent,
unpredictable, it's it's low quality and
they're really expensive. So you better
really value those greenhouse gas
reductions to want to do renewables at
that stage. Okay? Okay. And that's when
you look back at Ontario's green
electricity program, which was near the
start of that, they were paying upwards
of $800 a megawatt hour for some of
their early subsidies. Okay? And I think
that legacy, not only was it costly for
Alberta rateayers, but it's been very
damaging, I would say, for the push for
renewables later on because many people
I speak to still point to that Ontario
experience is just how costly renewables
are. And it it even for someone like me
who's very in the weeds in this space,
it took me a long time to reset that to
update my priors to recognize that while
these things are still intermittent,
we'll go through the cons in a second.
They're still variable, still relatively
low quality power, they're cheap. They
are really cheap. So if you look at
solar and wind there, um then this is
just to 2020 and the decline has
continued. You're talking for solar
between 30 and $40 a megawatt hour. So
three to four cents per kilowatt hour.
For wind you're getting into the mid20s
per megawatt hour.
That's the cheapest source of energy
there is. Okay. So for perspective,
um a natural gas plant, they're
relatively cheap here in Alberta because
our natural gas is some of the cheapest
in the world. Um, but for natural gas,
you're talking around $50 to $80 would
be a rough average cost. What we call
levelized cost. For a nuclear plant,
there's not as much data on those, but
expectations in is in the realm
optimistic in the high 90s, but
realistically probably about $110 to
$140 per megawatt hour. Hydro similarly
for large hydro. Okay. So, you can see
why the attraction to this cheap source
of energy. We'll go through the cons and
that sort of raises the how can we
combine that cheap source of energy with
other parts of our portfolio to make it
worth our while.
>> Kab you have a question.
» Kab you have a question.
>> Oh yeah.
» Oh yeah.
>> Yeah. Thank you. So when we talk about
» Yeah. Thank you. So when we talk about
the cheap source of energy like I guess
when we talk about that are we um
factoring in like the government's
involvement in that like because for
example we had a project here in county
that received $32 million in federal
funding. Mhm.
>> Um, so it might appear cheap, but it's
» Um, so it might appear cheap, but it's
still like there's there was a cost to
it. So is that is that
>> these are these are unsubsidized
» these are these are unsubsidized
numbers.
>> And and absolutely I I I advise even the
» And and absolutely I I I advise even the
federal government and that's one of the
things I remember speaking with Mr.
Minister Wilkinson on is like stop
subsidizing these. They don't need it.
And and I think because of the pace at
which this was changing, they did need
subsidies for a while if the carbon co
carbon tax wasn't covering this uh or
there was just simply a bridge. We want
these things. We want the future
greenhouse gas reductions, but there's a
slight cost disadvantage. Subsidies are
one way to push it over. But we're to
the point where they're no longer
needed.
>> Okay. So these numbers are without
» Okay. So these numbers are without
subsidies.
>> Correct. Okay.
» Correct. Okay.
>> Yeah. This these numbers are from the
» Yeah. This these numbers are from the
the Lazard report which is sort of the
gold standard globally for um levelized
costs. And this is from their their 14th
report. I think they're on number 16 or
17 now. I can point this out to Mike and
find the exact thing.
>> Councelor Penner.
» Councelor Penner.
>> So just to follow up to that, what are
» So just to follow up to that, what are
you hearing from the governments? Are
they listening to you in regard to that?
Because at the end of the day, it's our
money. It's the rateayers money. You
know what I mean? So yeah,
>> um is this something as a mun we we need
» um is this something as a mun we we need
to be advocating for enough's enough
here? Um but these subsidies I know it's
federally mostly but I mean
>> so are they listening?
» I'd love to say yes councelor Penner but
um
>> it's hard sometimes. So this is a this
» it's hard sometimes. So this is a this
is a tangent but the clean electricity
regulations is a different thing alto
together but um that was one where I was
quite vocal in my critiques of the clean
electricity regulation and I'm not
someone to sort of intently try to slow
down decarbonization. I I I believe it's
needed. Um but I was very critical in
the prescriptive nature of it and they
did listen to a large degree there. So
it it's it's probably buried in the
weeds, but between the first iteration
of the clean electricity regulations and
then the final proposed or the final
one, uh there was a dramatic change
there. So I do chalk that up. So I
myself and and another academic, we um
we spent a lot of time with them. We put
out public um consultations and and I
think they did change there. On the um
renewable subsidies, I think there has
been a slight shift away. The dollars
well 32 million in the county is is
large. overall they've dropped
dramatically and there's lots of
subsidies I disagree with uh from all
ranges of governments out there that are
probably unnecessary and either targeted
for political or local jobs. Um they are
slowing down on the renewables front. I
I would say that but they're not pulling
them all together.
>> So I just I mean a follow up to that.
» So I just I mean a follow up to that.
Are you are are the ears more open
proincially over federal or about the
same?
>> Um
» Um
[Laughter]
>> because I don't think we're we're heard
» because I don't think we're we're heard
out here in the west to be honest with
you from down east. So uh are federal
government listening?
>> Right. I think they are. In fact, I'm
» Right. I think they are. In fact, I'm
working on a new thing with Enerc right
now. They're going to provide about $8
million to a project I'm starting on
interprovincial transmission. And the
the thing I get from them, this
particular um um pocket of money is a
large pocket. They have several billion
dollars for projects. Um they they very
much disproportionately allocate to
Alberta and the West for this very
reason of wanting to be made sure it's
clear that they are supportive. That's
NRCAN, Natural Resources Canada. I think
of all of the ministries, they might be
a little bit more understanding or more
receptive to our needs. Um, speaking
frankly, like Environment Canada is
mixed. I I work with them and and um,
you know, sometimes I, for example, the
first iteration of the clean electricity
regulations,
they simply weren't plausible. They
simply weren't doable in many provinces
in in in Canada, of which Saskatchewan
and Alberta would be two. And they put
that first one out, I think, without I
think they maybe you could call it a
negotiation or political, I'm not sure,
but it wasn't feasible from an
electricity or energy standpoint.
But the good news is they did listen in
the end.
So here on the con side, the most
obvious con is production is variable. I
just pulled out a random day. This was
April 1st of this year, just to show you
what wind generation can look like
within a day. And you understand why
grid operators have a have a tough time
with this source of generation. Um,
you know, you're going from near zero
middle of the day to over 1500 megawws.
And again, in a system that's roughly
running around 10,000. And so when you
see that really steep line, a steep
curve there between 6:00 p.m. and and 7
p.m., you need some other source of
generation or transmission lines that
can ramp up quite quickly to to manage
that change. Okay? And so and so that is
a struggle in a small system that still
doesn't have much energy storage.
The other crit um challenge with wind
and solar in particular is the low
energy density. So large land needed per
megawatt. And I'm sure we'll get into
this. I'm not an aggrava expert,
although I do know University of Calgary
has some trial programs going on at some
ranches in the foothills. Um uh but this
is this is a challenge that the land
mass needed for um especially more so
solar, you know, uh because it does take
up more of a footprint and the capacity
factors are relatively low. So that's
something to consider. And the third and
this is getting into the electrical
engineers in the room will appreciate
this but um there's certain features of
power plants that are needed to make the
grid stable. And so one is when you have
hydro turbines or natural gas or coal
generators really when I teach
electricity markets to my students
pretty much everything uh except for
solar is about spinning something.
you're spinning a magnetic coil, you
know, around a current and that and
that's creating the current, sorry. Um,
and that spinning mass also has inertia.
And so when we have deviations on the
system, when we when we plug in a
toaster or boil some water here, we're
not turning a power plant up and down.
We're leaning on that inertia of the
system and we're adjusting the frequency
of electricity. So electricity
oscillates at a 60 Hz frequency. We're
adjusting that very small amounts 59.99
if we have an extra pull. So it slows
down the system. If we turn off demand,
the the system speeds up a little bit.
We have to keep that within really tight
ranges. Okay, we're getting really into
the weeds, but wind and solar don't have
that. I know wind is spinning, um, but
that's happening behind an inverter, so
the system itself doesn't see that.
Okay. And so that was something that's
what really caught our grid operator
offguard about a year and a half ago
when they started to recognize we have
all these renewables. They're not
providing those two things, inertia and
frequency regulation to our system and
we need those. Historically
they got those for free from thermal
generators. They didn't charge they
didn't there was no product. They didn't
make them pay um they didn't pay for it.
They simply made a technical order that
these generators had to leave a tiny bit
of headroom for this inertia and
frequency regulation. I'm
oversimplifying but I think you get the
picture.
So when we move to something that has
more of these what we call inverterbased
resources, so wind and solar that come
as direct current and they get
transferred to alternating current on
the system. We didn't have that and so
as a result they had to really quickly
put in that was one of the reasons for
the moratorum stated reasons we need to
slow down renewables because we don't
have this. The grid operator also
curtailed the um amount of uh
electricity transfer on the interies so
that they could use the interties more
for leverage. Okay. And also so they
wouldn't have as much flowing on the
interties if we had a problem here. And
it really caught them off guard. Okay.
And I want to I want to suggest that
this is sort of both a real issue, but
one that just a little bit of planning
and foresight and management can deal
with. Texas, for example, recognized the
issue of lack of inertia with growing
inverter-based resources about 10 years
ago. And what they started to demand is
that all inverterbased resources are
what's called grid forming rather than
grid following. So grid following simply
means if the frequency is is deviating,
you're following that new frequency. So
you can actually make you're propagating
things, making it worse. Grid forming,
you're dictating the frequency at which
your generation is coming onto the
system. So you can actually help if the
frequency is dropping, you can say, I'm
actually 60.01 01 hertz and you raise
it. Okay, that little change which has a
cost and that cost would be borne by the
inverter based resources like wind and
solar was part of a regulation in Texas
10 years ago when they saw this coming.
We were late on that and I think a big
part of that was the grid operator
really didn't foresee the growth of wind
and solar that I would argue was very
obvious and I got a lot of friends there
at the grid operator and they're a bit
mad at me because I made a lot of public
statements in 2021 saying these
long-term forecasts are farcical because
they were forecasting the level of solar
that we ended up having in 2023 that we
wouldn't reach it until 2041.
And so it really caught them off guard
because they didn't expect to have this.
And I think all you had to do was look
outside our jurisdiction to see just how
much it was growing and how quickly
those capital costs were falling to know
that it was going to come. As a result,
they were caught off guard. So what are
they doing? They're going out there and
they're procuring things that can
provide frequency regulation. There's
contracts in place. Largely those are
batteries. So for Texas's whole system
in addition to inverter based resources
they just needed to procure 500 megawws
of batteries to manage all the frequency
regulation from this problem. That's
tiny cost okay and that's their size of
their systems about seven times ours. So
there are solutions is my whole point to
that that rant.
So so here's the reality. I'm happy to
have some discussion on this. Um, first
off, anyone that tells you we're going
to run our entire system on wind and
solar is is not telling the truth. Okay?
So, I think that extreme causes
problems. But people also saying that,
you know, because the sun doesn't shine
at night that uh solar has no value is
also incorrect.
Okay. What do they do? Wind and solar
displace
um costly fuel. So, you know, I think
you guys have solar panels on your roof
here. I saw when I drove in, they
weren't generating power last night. I'm
pretty confident of that. That doesn't
mean they're worthless. What they're
doing is they're displacing the need to
pay for fuel, operating costs, wear and
tear on other power plants during the
day. Okay. So, there is that energy
value there. The key thing is thinking
about how they work as part of a system
or portfolio. What are you pairing it
with such that the cost of that other
resource sitting idle more frequently
when you combine that that it's worth
your while? Okay. And that's why things
like batteries which are a perfect
compliment for intermittent renewables
are that fastest growing resource in the
power sector. Base load technology is
not a good compliment.
Okay. So we often hear this push for
wanting base load. If you're thinking
about a portfolio, base load has almost
just as much challenges as intermittent
generation in the sense that demand is
not base load. Okay, there's a certain
level that's fine. We often have systems
with a certain level of industrial load
that can pair well with 247 production,
but most of our demand at some level
goes up and down. So really the ideal
source is one that's flexible and what
we call dispatchable. So on demand
new technologies can resolve technical
challenges. Okay. So as this grows human
ingenuity grows with it. Um batteries,
grid forming inverters, flexible demand.
I'll talk about that. Uh the key is
finding the right compliments to take
advantage of this increasingly cheap
source of energy. The way I like to
think about renewables is they're not
reliable. You can't call on them when
you want, but they are a cheap source of
energy. Can we find a way to use this
cheap source of energy? Can we shift
demand to when they're there? Can we
shift that to supply to other periods?
Can we complement it with other sources
to give us the reliable power that we
want?
Um, I can pause there for a sec.
Caroline, how much time did you have
allocated for me today?
>> Oh, no.
» Oh, no.
>> I gotta get back for class after. Um if
» I gotta get back for class after. Um if
anybody's questions there I I just have
um
>> sure
» sure
>> I have some stuff on the compliments
» I have some stuff on the compliments
side of things but uh
>> councor folks
» councor folks
>> I mean I've had conversations with
» I mean I've had conversations with
people in the public around when energy
really became an issue for who we are
and I believe with the technologies that
are coming out the AIS those type of
things that requires more energy than
what was usually done before.
>> Yeah. And so is the cost of carbon also
» Yeah. And so is the cost of carbon also
included in the dismantling of all of
this equipment that is producing this
cheap energy when we need it to help us
to rely on when the grids are down and
not running as fast.
>> Um sorry I'm trying to understand your
» Um sorry I'm trying to understand your
question. Um the
>> well you're looking at technology. I'm
» well you're looking at technology. I'm
looking at it from a perspective of when
did when did electricity become such an
issue for everybody using it is when
when technologies improved to the point
where now everything is you've got
clouds you've got everything storing
everything that requires energy
>> so is the carbon also included in those
» so is the carbon also included in those
technologies when so the equipment we
have windmills out here once that
equipment is down is the carbon produced
where are we putting these because right
now currently there isn't a best
recycling program for any of the
equipment being put on At least the
lands in Alberta.
>> Sure. It's talking about reclamation
» Sure. It's talking about reclamation
costs.
>> So the the direct answer on carbon costs
» So the the direct answer on carbon costs
is is no. The large emitter pricing
system in in Alberta and the one that
applies federally too, but the Alberta
one dominates here or trumps it. Um that
is only on production emissions. Okay.
So life cycle emissions on everything um
are not are not part of that. It's on
production emissions on on reclamation.
That that's an important issue. I spent
a lot of time doing research on um oil
and gas reclamation liabilities which
you know pale and make um renewables one
look like an an ant on a molehill. um s
significantly different issue in the
sense of
on renewables. You're building these
typically on private land with land
owners and you can the land owners are
in full control over decisions whether
or not they want to require a
reclamation bond to to deal with that
aftermath. Whereas on oil and gas,
you're if you're the mineral rights
holder, you can gain access to that land
and you can even um compel surface
rights holders. The other big issue is
at the end of life of a wind or solar
project.
Well, you have to deal with that scrap
metal and everything that you have
there. The land's still going to have
value. And if it's a strong solar or
wind site, the earth cycles are going to
mean that's still a strong wind or solar
site. And so you're going to probably
most likely repurpose that with the
newest technology for either windmills
or or um solar panels. Whereas on an oil
gas facility, if you depleted that
reservoir, you've also significantly
depleted the land value underneath it.
Um, so while I don't diminish at all the
reclamation challenges with renewables,
I I do struggle with a lot of the focus
in this province on that when the oil
and gas one is hundreds of times larger
and has this challenge of depleted
economic value of the site as well.
Yeah. Anything else?
>> Councor Phobes, please. So, I appreciate
» Councor Phobes, please. So, I appreciate
that answer, but I mean, we're talking
about energy that we're being told is
green, green, green, green. But there is
an end of life expectation that you know
what, true story, oil and gas, my
husband works in this industry. Yes,
there is a lot, but the solar panels,
where are we putting them at the end of
the life? Because the landfills in
Torington or that we have currently in
Neihill County will not house those. So,
where will they go and how is that green
and where is the carbon attached to that
portion of it as well? We're going to
talk about it. Let's talk about all of
it. Not aortion so that we get what we
want.
>> Fair. Yeah. I don't like the term green.
» Fair. Yeah. I don't like the term green.
Okay.
>> Because I
» Because I
>> Yeah. Yeah. Because I think it, you
» Yeah. Yeah. Because I think it, you
know, nothing is without consequence.
>> Um and I think, you know, that that's
» Um and I think, you know, that that's
that's why I like life cycle analysis.
Um, I think if you looked at life cycle
analysis and took that into account
though, you'd still find the the carbon
um impact from these significantly less
than anything else. Um, but it is is not
something to dismiss. Agreed.
the same I you know I I do a lot of
research on electric vehicle impacts and
the same question goes in there in terms
of you know the emission impacts of
building the batteries and things like
this and and that's often touted as a
reason why electric vehicles are not uh
clean or green to use that word and and
yes you should include them but there's
really good rigorous work that once even
when you include that it's significantly
lower impact than than um internal
combustion gas or diesel fuel. So here's
what I wanted to talk about which is
what are these complements to say a
world with more renewables because
renewables are cheap. So clean is just
one desired attribute. Uh affordable and
reliable is really this this trifecta is
what we need on our on our system. Um we
do have abundant and cheap renewables
that gives us I'll call it clean if
councelor folks will allow me for now.
Um and and it does allow for more
affordable, but what are our options to
make that reliable and really there's
there's four big paths here. Um which
I'll go into each, but flexible supply
to pair it with. So supply that can fill
those valleys. Storage, okay, to shift
power from one period to another.
Transmission to move power from one
jurisdiction to another. And the flip
side of thinking only about the supply
side, which is what about moving demand
around, which is what we all do in our
daily lives. When the price of a airline
ticket gets really expensive, we think,
well, maybe I'll travel on a Thursday
instead of a Friday.
So, in the clean, firm, and flexible
supply. So, these things we can pair
with. Renewables are cheap, but they're
intermittent, which is not what we love.
So, what are the supply side firm
solutions? So, firm as in they're ready
when we need them. Uh, reservoir hydro.
So not run of river hydro but hydro with
a reservoir down behind it so we can
call on it at at our will. Uh nuclear
power hydrogen turbines. So these would
be taking simple cycle gas plants
instead of using methane run through
them we run hydrogen. Uh natural gas but
add to that some carbon capture or
geothermal. Okay these are sort of at a
high level the sort of five main
options. And the challenges with each of
these reservoir hydro, do we have any
availability? Are we really building any
new reservoir hydro? Um there's in
Alberta, there's always been a potential
project in the north east of the
province that really hasn't moved
forward and I don't know if it ever
will. Uh BC ran into so many challenges
on site C. They've announced that's
going to be their last large major
hydro. Quebec is still building large
hydro, but they're um um maybe the last
one uh remaining. So, reservoir hydro is
challenging. Nuclear, there's a big push
for nuclear. I'm I'm a proponent. I I
think it's it's a valuable source. It's
the the energy density is what excites
me on it. The question there in addition
to this, so lead time uh is one. If
we're talking about nuclear, we're
really not talking for anything in
production for at least 15 years
realistically. cost. Also, these nuclear
plants are going to be significantly
more expensive. The other challenge with
nuclear is flexibility. Nuclear does not
like being flexible. Nuclear likes
setting it and running it. Okay, they
run in a high 90% capacity factor. Um,
which is nice for a base, but it isn't
what you want to fill your system with
because at the end of the day, we need a
system that can move up and down. Okay.
Uh, hydrogen turbines very costly. I've
done a lot of work on hydrogen. Um, it's
exciting. It's to think about I like the
idea of dual fuel power plants that can
run either on methane or hydrogen but um
there's some brittleization of steel
associated with it and the production of
clean hydrogen is very expensive still
natural gas with carbon capture um if
that's going to work anywhere it's
Alberta where we have the caverns where
we have the cheap natural gas so we'll
see where that goes um I think it's
something worth considering because it
does allow us to continue with the
existing industry that we have, the
jobs, the society, if you will. Um, but
technologically it's challenging.
Natural gas CCS on a power plant hasn't
been done successfully yet. Okay?
Certainly not economic yet. And so,
while there's potential for this, um I
I'm I'm sort of a believer of when I
when I see it. That is an area where um
councelor Penner, you talked about
subsidies. that that's one where I do
believe in subsidies in the sense of
it's it's it's helping us learn and so
that's one of the purpose of public
subsidies is in areas where you want to
go down a learning curve where a private
company simply wouldn't make the
investment because it's not near
economic if they can if we can learn
something and that can be a spill over
to others to use that that's where
there's value so I think that's an area
where you are seeing subsidies and some
people would argue like they dislike
those subsidies as much as other people
dislike like renewable subsidies. I I
see the same case for early renewable
subsidies that helped us. That's part of
the reason why we've came down that that
cost curve. Okay, we were able to learn
by doing. Geothermal is is is quite
interesting. There's lots of different
technologies. There's sort of the
traditional go deep and hit hot rock.
But there's also some local companies.
Full disclosure, I'm I'm investor in one
of them, Ever Geothermal, which does
closed loop. So, it doesn't need hot
rock. it just goes and uses directional
drilling. So those were some folks uh
that I knew from Senovas that started
that company that said why don't we use
this directional drilling to do
something different than fracking.
Instead they're going and they're
creating effectively large heat
exchangers like kilometer long heat
exchangers and getting relatively low uh
heat differentials to produce either
low-level heat steam um uh but they're
using those through microurbines to
produce power. That's an Alberta
company. It's doing quite well. We just
installed some stuff in in the
Netherlands.
Storage directly solves the
intermittency challenge. Okay, you have
too much power at one time. It's really
really sunny, there's too much power in
the province, store that up and release
it or discharge it in the evening. But
the re that works really well on a day
in dayout basis. That's why you're
seeing so much of it in California and
in Texas. Um, but the real issue here in
Alberta is seasonal storage. Okay. I
told you earlier that solar capacity
factor is around 20%. It's kind of on
average for the year, but in the summer
it can be in the low to mid30s. That's
sort of an average summer and the winter
5 to 10%.
>> Okay. We need power all year round and
» Okay. We need power all year round and
some would argue more so in the winter.
Um and so seasonal storage is is
challenging. So that makes some of the
battery technology that we have out
there um that's not suited for seasonal
storage. Lithium ion is good for 4 to
eight hours. Uh pumped hydro is one that
has some potential. Compressed air
energy storage is something that there's
again some Alberta companies looking at
this that offers seasonal storage. Okay.
So there you're compressing air or even
CO2 into a cavern and you're releasing
that at some other time and getting that
discharge pressure and energy. And so
there's something that you can do
seasonal storage with. Hydrogen. There
was a lot of hype for hydrogen because
it is simply a medium. Okay, you can you
can use that excess power at times um to
electrolyze water for example and create
that hydrogen and use that hydrogen for
purposes of generating power in other
time periods. Okay, so there are options
out there. Pumped hydro is the biggest
source of energy storage right now
globally, but batteries are the ones
that are rising the fastest.
Transmission
um I mentioned that intercan project
we're working on. This to me is kind of
the holy grail in Canada. We have very
limited east west transmission
connections uh for good reason but
there's lots of reasons why that should
change now and and one of the reasons is
comp taking advantage of these very
different types of systems we have so
Saskatchewan and Alberta have this sort
of fossilri and a renewablesrich systems
very sunny um BC and Manitoba are hydror
sources are actually very expensive um
BC just had a call for for wind power.
They bought three gigawatts of wind
power uh three gawatt hours annually
sorry of wind power about 1500 megawatts
and uh they paid it's not public but it
it's it's expected to be in the area of
70 to $85 per megawatt hour was the
average price here in Alberta our wind
calls were in the high30s
okay so we should be building more wind
in Alberta
and more transmission with BC and
flowing there and then taking the hydro
back in this direction in periods when
we don't have it. Instead, we're
stopping building wind in our province
and they're building double the cost
wind over there. So, transmission is is
is um something that can take advantage
of that. But there are a myriad of
challenges let alone the challenges of
building linear infrastructure of any
type in the country as we know with with
land rights challenges uh for power.
There's differences in market structure.
Okay, we we are a competitive private
generation market here in uh Alberta and
they're a crown corporation monopoly uh
in BC, similarly Saskatchewan and
Manitoba. And so trading between the
two, while we do it, it isn't without
its challenges in terms of reciprocity
and distribution of the benefits. So
that's something that we are we are
working at um right now. The last one is
flexible demand. This doesn't get as
much attention. I love this quote I
found somewhere. It said, 'If the old
world was forecasting demand and
dispatching supply, the new world
involves forecasting supply and
dispatching demand. So there's more need
for flexibility, okay? Because we have
more intermittency. Uh there's bigger
flexible loads out there. Electric
vehicles are a really good case in
point. They're re yeah reasonably large
demand, but they're very flexible on
when they charge. And I can show you
some studies I've done with Foris and
NMAX in terms of how easy it is to shift
when they charge and how valuable that
is to the grid to get them to do it and
how painful it is if they don't. There's
also cheap control technology. Um how
many of you have like a Nest or an EcoB
or Honeywell thermostat? All of these
things can be moved around um without
the the painful effort on the part of
the consumer. Electric vehicles being a
really good example. I think one of the
counselors mentioned data centers.
That's another one where the the big um
to me the big push for data centers
while they're there going to be very big
loads.
The value from them would be can we get
some flexibility out of them. Okay, most
data centers, it's surprising me
training data centers, the ones that are
doing training of models run quite high
capacity factors 90% of the time, but
the ones for inference when you do your
chat GPT query, those deep data centers
are used about 60 to 70% of the time.
Can we get the flexibility to shift
which data centers are used when we make
that query? Okay. So, if Al a part of
Alberta is in a power crunch, your
question on what's the the the the best
temperature for a lamb roast gets sent
to Wyoming. Okay. And that's something
we had a conference a few months ago.
Microsoft was up. That's exactly what
they're working on is using basically
the internet to arbitrage power
location. So, when you have high prices
of power in one location, they shift
their inference or their queries to
other data centers. That's tremendously
valuable because power is cheap about
80% of the time and it's those 20% of
ours that get very expensive. So the
more flexibility we have to shift it
more um easier it will be to integrate
those large loads.
Just have a couple more slides. Um I'll
stop talking. This this is uh on demand
response. This was a study uh it was
actually in British Columbia that I did
which ran peak events once every roughly
two weeks randomly to households. We had
about 2,000 households in in the lower
mainland.
Um where we gave them they were paid
anywhere from$1 to $6 per event for
reducing their power consumption in
their home depending on how much they
did. Okay. uh which was a reasonable
reasonably large amount relative to
their um to their bills
and what we did was we provided uh some
of those this manual group over here we
simply sent them a message okay so all
these folks had this BC hydro app we
sent them a message saying you have an
event coming up if you reduce your
consumption you can earn see what they
did and you can see we got about a 5%
average reduction in consumption during
these peak periods from them another
group this tech group, we said the same,
but we also equipped them with load
controllers. So, we actually got
electrician go into their house, put
load controllers on their um on their
HVAC system, on their hot water tank,
their electric tanks over there, and uh
EV chargers for the ones that had them.
And there they would get this message
and they could simply push a button on
their phone to say, "Yep, I want to
reduce consumption on my controllable
devices right now." So, made it really
easy for them. But interestingly, we
didn't get any benefit from installing
that costly tech uh over the manual
group. Then the third one, what we
called central, we basically flipped the
default. So we had those people with
load controllers and we said there's an
event coming up. We will be dimming
those devices of yours. Okay? We will be
delaying heating. Uh we will be delaying
heating your hot water tank or your
charging. These are two-hour events,
three-hour events. Um press this button
if you don't want us to do this. Okay.
And so just by flipping that that that
that that default, we got about a 27%
reduction
um in consumption there. And we did
expost surveys, you know, did we annoy
you by doing this? Did you find yourself
in they most people said we didn't even
know you did it. Okay, these are tanked
hot water systems. They hot water last
for 24 hours. So you don't shifting
heating is not even noticed by the
consumer. So this is getting a bit of a
behavioral aspect of you can't just give
people technology. You need to make it
easy for them. The last one, this was
here locally. This was in Calgary. This
was on an EV charging pilot where we
wanted to see would people respond to
time of use rates for electricity. So,
we gave them cheaper overnight rates. It
was a 3.5 cent per kilowatt hour
discount on power consumed between 10
p.m. and 6 a.m. And what you see here,
so the rewards group got that got that
reward and you saw a really big increase
in their off peak or overnight charging.
So about 80% of their charging shifted
to overnight. Okay. Versus the control
group which would we didn't get any we
didn't offer them anything. And then
there was an education group where we
didn't pay them to shift, but we told
them, "Hey, it'd be really nice, be
really swell if you did this. It's
really important for the grid. Um kind
of a moral persuasion nudge." There was
no impact from that. People didn't do it
for the goodness of their hearts. So the
story of this, I think we called this
paper show me the money was if people um
uh see these difference in prices and
this this is not a subsidy. This is
really reflecting the fact power is a
lot cheaper overnight. And right now in
Alberta, we don't convey that to
consumers that everyone pays the same
price across the day. But giving people
more of a signal to you can save money
if you shift some of your consumption
overnight. For many applications, that's
simply not feasible. You're not going to
touch it. Uh but for EV charging, it is
quite easy. Okay? And that really comes
down to the fact that the service you
get from an EV driving is divorced from
the electricity use charging on account
of that battery.
Um, I've been an hour, Caroline, so I
could stop. I have some slides on market
design if you guys want to go further.
Um, but I thought maybe I can pause,
>> give a chance for questions.
» give a chance for questions.
>> Okay. Um, counces, please.
» Okay. Um, counces, please.
>> You're talking about the public um, with
» You're talking about the public um, with
that last little bit of a presentation
about them getting the benefits of it.
Was any thought given to um corporations
that reside within our province, so to
speak, or wherever? Did you guys do data
on that as well if they did their
because sometimes, you know, when you're
driving at night and you're going past
the walnuts of the world or whatever box
store we go to, um the electricity on
the outside, it's running all over and
no one's really in the store. So, are we
also putting that factoring that in as
well as just what we're doing on every
day in my house?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Great question, actually. I
» Yeah. Yeah. Great question, actually. I
love an anecdote when I worked at BC
Hydro. BC Hydro this big powers smart
campaign to turn off your lights at
night and then it was on the news the BC
Hydro headquarters was just lit up and
the first the spokesperson was like well
it really hurts our light bulbs to be
turning them on and off so it's a lot
easier.
>> Um lighting actually interestingly is
» Um lighting actually interestingly is
not important anymore. These LED
lighting um I have a current monitor in
my house. I monitor all my circuits. I'm
a nerd and I'll turn all my lights on
and I don't even see the current change.
It's just the LED lights are such a, you
know, is 90% 94% less than incandescent.
Lighting isn't a big one. Um, on
corporations, absolutely. Um, this
particular study was was residential EVs
and the BC one was residential, but
commercial for Oh, let me let me back
up. On the industrial level, we already
have this push. So many industrial
customers are directly connected and
face the hourly prices. Um throughout my
career as a trader, we often had deals
with some of them. Newsprint companies
are some of the best. They're very
flexible when they use their power where
we would offer them kind of option-l
like contracts to change their
consumption. Um yeah, throughout our
career, industrial is already heavily
engaged. Commercial,
um I would say is just the same
applicability as residential. Currently
in Alberta, they don't have the
possibility of time of use rates. Um,
but they would certainly be in the
conversation for for getting it. Um,
there's mixed studies out there about
the responsiveness of commercial. So on
some level, because they have a it's a
higher share of costs and they might be
more profit focused, you would expect a
bit more responsiveness, but on others,
they're inflexible. They don't want to
adjust things in their business. They
don't want any inconvenience. So there's
sort of mixed results and it's going to
depend on the type of business it is and
and the the type of electric service.
>> Councel,
» I know we're talking energy production
here and all sorts of uh different types
of ways to produce energy
and really energy is not the problem for
for us. It is actually the transmission
and distribution costs.
Because the cost of the power itself is
not bad. It's getting it to us.
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> And that's what we need to fix. I don't
» And that's what we need to fix. I don't
care how you fix it, but it should be
more equal throughout the province. I I
I would think, but
>> I just a comment, I guess.
» I just a comment, I guess.
>> No, I love I I don't have the slide in
» No, I love I I don't have the slide in
here, but the one I my my intro to
electricity markets course, the first
thing I do is say energy is only a part
of your bill as a retailer. In fact,
it's like less than a third these days.
Depending on where you are out here,
it'd be much less than a third. Um,
actually, maybe not here, but further
north. Um,
yeah, if you're in Atco territory, and
no disparaging onco if you're listening,
um, it's significantly higher
distribution costs. Your point on should
we have postage stamp distribution costs
around the province, I'm of mixed minds
on that. I know that in other provinces
like BC and Saskatchewan and our
neighbors where it's one distribution
utility, there is a cross subsidy across
the province. Here you have different
distribution utilities. So you'd be
asking somehow uh INMAX customers to
cross subsidize ACO. There's a good
reason why distribution costs are higher
in ACO's territory. you have less
customers per substation, per
transformer, per feeder line, simply
because of um it's the same reason why
milk is more expensive in Northwest
Territories. Um you know, it it's I I'm
not I'm personally am not convinced that
we should have postage stamp pricing.
I'm actually a proponent of
locationational pricing across all
aspects of our um power system to try to
reflect that both energy and cost to
serve really varies by where you are. Um
but I I totally appreciate that there's
a fairness issue and that's probably not
wellreceived in the areas that that does
face those higher prices, but I think to
some extent that's known that's
capitalized in in housing costes costs
um in land costs. user pay.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, there's a
» Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, there's a
trade-off between the user pay principle
and kind of this fairness concept and um
you know, one province. Um your other
comment though about transmission and
distribution or wires costs, I 100%
agree with you on that one. Um if you
look at energy costs, the United States
has some great charts on this. the the
EIA, Energy Information Administration,
generation costs on average in real
terms have actually been falling for the
last 10 years. So even though we talk
about, you know, high prices at times
and even here in Alberta, even here in
Alberta, we had that spike in 2021 to
23, which was largely driven by economic
withholding, on average, our energy
costs have been down in real terms,
inflation adjusted. What's rising is
wires costs and a lot of my current
research is f focused on distribution
costs because that's the one I think is
going to be I think there's a fork in
the road there where done poorly
distribution costs are going to explode
as we electrify and have much larger
loads at home so let alone air
conditioners start adding EVs heat pumps
these big spiky loads
um that done one way it's going to get
very expensive. Um I'll mayulpa my
street in Calgary. I have an electric
vehicle. Two of my neighbors have one
and we just had our transformer in our
alley upgraded. Okay.
Everyone shares in that cost. Opposite
of user pay. I don't pay for that
upgrade. Everyone pays for that.
I did a study with Foris on how can we
get around that upgrade cost and there's
a program called managed charging where
it takes into account that say Mike is
my neighbor and and Wade is our his
neighbor and we coordinate it allows us
to sequence that charging because the
reality is EVs are plugged in for 13
hours at home on average and charge for
about 50 minutes 50 on average there's a
lot of flexib ibility on when to do it.
And the worst case scenario is I, Mike,
and Wade all get home at 5:00 p.m., plug
in right when the rest of the load is
surging, and we kind of not blow up, but
put a lot of stress on that transformer,
and then NMAX goes and says, "We need to
replace it." Instead,
first of all, we could both delay our
charging to midnight, but better than
that, because if we all go on at
midnight, it's fine for the energy
system, but that local transformer gets
overloaded. I go at midnight for an
hour. Mike goes at 1:00 am and Wade goes
at 2 am. We're clearly not going to have
a conversation and organize that. But
that's where technology comes in. Okay.
Sign up for these managed charging
programs that simply manage that for
you. Some people find that
uncomfortable. When when we launched
this in forest territory, the comment
section was pretty pretty um um colorful
in terms of managing loads. Um, but when
people got paid a little bit per month
and said, you know, the the fuel for
your vehicle will be $20 a month cheaper
if you just let us sequence you when
your transformer is overloaded. We're
going to shift it around. Sure. Didn't
even notice. Okay. And we're seeing
those types of programs um um explode in
the United States where there is like in
places like California where there's a
lot of EVs as managed charging. So it's
a technical solution to very much avoid
that thing because I think without that
uncontrolled large loads are going to
put a lot of stress on distribution
networks but I'm trying to be a bit more
optimistic recognizing there is a lot of
ability to now control the timing of
those loads shift away from peaks.
>> That's a great point.
» That's a great point.
>> So we've gotten into this whole
» So we've gotten into this whole
conversation around distribution and
managing and moving power from one place
to another. The real question in my mind
and I know there's a society
responsibility that we all have and
rural currently is carrying the load for
the renewables. Why aren't they placing
the power development closer to the
consumers? So we carry the
responsibility for solar and wind and
the land usage takes place under our
jurisdiction but the power usage isn't
necessarily here. We don't get any
benefit by having the generation here in
terms of lower cost for distribution
lower cost of power whatever
>> but we carry the burden in terms of the
» but we carry the burden in terms of the
footprint and the aesthetics and so on.
>> The big consumers they don't want that
» The big consumers they don't want that
footprint nor do they want the
aesthetics. So why aren't we looking at
where the power is generated and where
the consumers are and trying to put them
close together.
>> Yeah, that's a great question. I this I
» Yeah, that's a great question. I this I
can segue in. So this is the
restructured energy market final design.
I had a bunch of slides about Alberta's
system. I'll skip over and this is kind
of the summary of the of the design. And
that the top line there is
locationational pricing. So that's a big
change. This is in the energy market,
not distribution but in the energy
market to have locationational prices
for the generation side. Okay. So that
you would now see that placing
generation in the southeast of the
province where we have a lot of solar
that's come in and we don't have
necessarily great transmission to take
it to load centers. It will start
receiving a lower price and it will
disincentivize production in those
areas. Whereas a load center maybe like
Calgary would face a higher price and it
would attract generation to that area
because it's on the other side of a of a
transmission constraint. So that sort of
gets at maybe right now when you have
uniform pricing, you're just simply
going to go where a the resource is
strongest. It's a little bit sunnier out
here than Calgary, but also land costs.
It's going to be a little bit cheaper
here than and closer to town. Um, but if
there's no distinction on the value of
that generation, you're simply going
where the lowest cost and best resource
is. So I think that's why you're you're
seeing that. So this should go some way
to doing that. On the consumer side,
this is an interesting policy choice.
The province was very averse to local
locationational pricing on the consumer
side. They really didn't like the idea
unlike distribution. They didn't want to
go down the path of the distribution
issues that we face now with four
different prices. So they wanted to keep
one uniform price. So we're going to
maintain cross subsidies on the
consumption side with the ability to opt
into locationational pricing. So if you
live in an area that has significantly
lower energy prices because of location
pricing, you can choose to participate
in that. But it's a one-time election.
You simply you can't go back and forth
when it's cheaper. So that could offer
that opportunity. On the distribution
side of things, one of the things you're
seeing is more distribution connected um
solar uh to a degree wind so that you're
able to put forth that cheaper
generation directly into the
distribution network and benefit those
consumers in that local area. So some
development happens there. Most of it
happens at the transmission scale.
>> I don't know if that helps answer your
» I don't know if that helps answer your
question. No, I it it it's something
that we deal with in a rural environment
where we carry the burden for the
development of those facilities
>> and they're not necessarily always that
» and they're not necessarily always that
popular
>> in a rural environment, but they're not
» in a rural environment, but they're not
popular in an urban environment either.
And so because of the
I'm going to say the influence of
numbers of people,
>> it forces that generation to move away
» it forces that generation to move away
from where it's actually the power is
going to be used.
>> So if I'm a
» So if I'm a
$5 million homeowner on Coach Hill in
Calgary and you talk to me about wind
generation directly west of my home,
it's not ever going to happen. But if I
happen to be a $500,000 acreage owner in
Neil County and you talk to me about
wind generation directly to the west of
my home,
>> the odds are much higher that it's going
» the odds are much higher that it's going
to happen here.
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> than there. And so that's
» than there. And so that's
>> when I when I say the burden gets
» when I when I say the burden gets
shifted to rural, it it's those kind of
things because it's much easier. Land
cost, everything is less.
>> Yeah. But it doesn't take the burden off
» Yeah. But it doesn't take the burden off
our transmission, nor does it put the
onus on those who are demanding the
power to have the power close to them.
And so to me, there's a there's a
disconnect. And I understand all the
reasons why the disconnect is there.
Doesn't make it any easier to deal with
when you're sitting in our environment.
>> Understood. Understood. Yeah. I think
» Understood. Understood. Yeah. I think
this is why, you know, I when I started
on the market design um working group, I
was a really strong advocate of
locationational pricing for this very
reason. You need to reflect the value in
locations and that would that would push
a developer who's on the fence between
building in Khill County versus Rocky um
U County, maybe somewhere closer to
Calgary for that very reason that if you
cross a transmission cut plane and you
get across a congestion point, there's
higher value there. So you might start
to see the the offsetting value
differences take away from the the the
land use differentials. The reality is
we simply don't have quarter sections
within the city of Calgary. Um so you're
going to have that but there are the
flip side and you guys would know this
far better than I but um you know you're
going to get some property taxes from
the construction. So it's not without um
without any benefit. I think more so
it's it is a decision of the land owner
>> you know. So if it was imposed upon you
» you know. So if it was imposed upon you
and the government expropriated land and
said we're building this nuclear plant
in your county or whatever plant it was
I would greatly understand that you know
cries of foul if it's a if it's a land
owner of a quarter section saying this
is the use of my land this is the
highest value use of my land for me
>> um and I'm making a private decision to
» um and I'm making a private decision to
do so I I I I totally get the um
um how a neighbor could still uh not
like that you know depending what I what
I build on there.
>> Um
» Um
>> but that is something that would be in
» but that is something that would be in
large part in the purview of that
private land owner.
>> Yeah. And and that's always the balance
» Yeah. And and that's always the balance
that we have to face is landowner rights
and the ability of them to make maximum
usage of their land. I will make the
argument that you do have linear
quarters of land in most cities along
your transportation corridors and other
places that are not being utilized that
could be. Okay. So
>> I would make that argument.
» I would make that argument.
>> Yeah. Fair.
» Yeah. Fair.
>> Councelor Penry,
» Councelor Penry,
>> I'm sorry. And we talk about quarter
» I'm sorry. And we talk about quarter
sections. Um, just look around Calgary
on the outskirts of Calgary. There's
quarter sections of warehouse after
warehouse. Why are there not solar
panels on those buildings?
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> And um, further to that, have you had
» And um, further to that, have you had
discussions with city planners and that
kind like as part of your getting
feedback,
>> you know, because that's it's it is
» you know, because that's it's it is
there's quarter section after quarter
section. Every time you go to the city,
there's more of the land which we have
to try and feed the world with taken
away from us. You know,
>> I think we should have panels on those
» I think we should have panels on those
flat roofs uh in the northeastern of
Calgary for sure. I was just my daughter
plays volleyball, so I drive around
those warehouses. That's where all the
volleyball courts are. Um I I absolutely
think we should and to some degree there
are uh more. I think that's simply a
question of economics. Um what's the
return on that? Um if it's if you're
displacing your energy costs and I think
councelor Whitlock Whittock already
pointed out energy costs are relatively
low um you're not getting much of a
distribution benefit although you are
getting that benefit for what's consumed
and if you don't have location pricing
to point out that the actual value of
power within the city of Calgary proper
is much higher than in Three Hills um
you have less private reason to do so
you know and um but I I think if we have
this conversation 101 15 years from now
or if we drove around those
neighborhoods I would fully expect
barring some even more egregious
moratorum that we would see those
because they simply make sense it's an
already disturbed land flat roof it's
easy to build on um we do have areas
like um the souththeast of Calgary
there's some reasonably large um solar
developments by Atco um near the Shepard
facility it's just Not I mean they look
like a lot of land within the city of
Calgary but they don't produce that much
because it doesn't it pales in
comparison to some of the ones out by
Vulcan.
>> Right. No and thank you for that. Sorry.
» Right. No and thank you for that. Sorry.
>> But yeah I agree with you that those do
» But yeah I agree with you that those do
make sense and I I should say like
NMAX and the city of Calgary do look at
those. I've been in some projects where
with them where they do look at
facilitating you know acceleration of
commercial PV developments. But I think
at the end of today's summit that
reliability is what we need in rural
Alberta here. Like we can't in the
winter time
>> have no power for a day or three days.
» have no power for a day or three days.
Like I'd love to see the city go without
power for a full day or three days to
see what happens. You know what I mean?
It's it's a big job like for us out here
and just because we don't have the
numbers. It seems like we don't have the
voice.
>> So reliability is the biggest thing I
» So reliability is the biggest thing I
think for rural.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Councelor Cuttingham, you
» Yeah. Yeah. Councelor Cuttingham, you
had a question.
>> Yeah, just question a comment really. I
» Yeah, just question a comment really. I
I really appreciate you coming here
because I think um like the Reeves
comments, I think that's what we hear as
municipal counselors in a rural
environment. So, I appreciate uh
somebody from a large urban center
coming and hearing what the challenges
that we face out here. Um it just it was
funny. I I was at a meeting one time
with a renewable company and one of our
rateayers asked that company, "Well,
will my um rates go down because I'm
living across?" and they very honestly
looked at him and said, "No, not a
chance." So, I mean, at least they were
honest with that. But, um, the economic
withholding piece, uh, Minister Nudorf
knows every time that we go to a
convention that I'm going to ask him
about that, so I'm going to keep doing
that. But, looks like we're making some
headway on that. But, when we talk about
the decisions of the landowner, I think
when councelor Phobus mentioned the
reclamation piece, every time we do go
to our conventions, um, reclamation of
oil and gas is always one of the hot
topics. And so I think for myself what I
appreciated what the provincial
government did was put that little bit
of a moratorium on and say whoa like we
don't want the renewables to become that
oil and gas piece. We want to plan um we
don't want that. So it comes back to the
cost to the municipality which in
essence is our rateayers and and us. So
I think um while it doesn't seem like a
huge issue right now we we have seen a
lot of projects come to our area and our
neighbor municipalities. So, we just
want to get ahead of that recol
reclamation piece so we're not having
that same issue that we faced with oil
and gas
>> plan comes after and the money comes
» plan comes after and the money comes
after. We want that to be done before.
So, I think that's where we're at with
that.
>> I get that. Yeah, makes sense.
» I get that. Yeah, makes sense.
>> Okay.
» Okay.
Um,
are we now well educated about our
energy production distribution and
otherwise?
I I was just going to say, Reef, could
we have could we have a copy of these
slides?
>> Y
» Y
>> Mike and Caroline have them and I I just
» Mike and Caroline have them and I I just
posted my um my contact info there.
It'll be in the slides, but I'm
part of the reason why I left u
industry. Uh wasn't for a pay raise.
I'll tell you that
was I enjoy doing this. I enjoy um
getting involved in policy work and I
have my areas of call it blinders or or
weak spots and you know I look at
systems as a whole. I I'm not uh
ignorant to um the impacts on
communities. Um but hearing from folks
like you where like you pointed out uh
Reef King, this is where the renewable
development is happening and your
concerns, your issues, your thoughts
around it might differ from someone who
lives in inner Calgary. So I I really
appreciate hearing from you and feel
free to reach out anytime. I'm happy to
come back to
>> Yeah. Go ahead, Council Per.
» Yeah. Go ahead, Council Per.
>> I sit on the drum solid waste and
» I sit on the drum solid waste and
association and the recycling uh it
needs to this all needs to be on a halt
until it is out there like Armor, the
Alberta Recycling Management. That's we
just have to point them to that. We
can't even give them an answer to what
they're doing with them. You know what I
mean? Because there are lots that are
broken while shipped. There are some
that are damaged in construction and
some other stuff. So, that recycling
part is huge and as far as I'm
concerned, it should all be on hold
until there is a program in place. Um,
just my opinion. Sorry. But like I said,
I have to say to people, I don't know
what they're doing with it. You just
need to phone Alberta Armor and they'll
tell you what to do with those panels.
» Anyway, I'm going to say thank you very
much, uh, Blake, Dr. Schaefer. Um,
though you're not a medical doctor,
you're still a doctor. Um, we very much
appreciate the time that you've taken
and I hope you felt it was worthwhile
having the conversation with us. Um, we
certainly feel that way the information
is valuable to us and so thank you.
>> Welcome.
» Welcome.
>> Appreciate you making the trip out and
» Appreciate you making the trip out and
if you brought your electric car, we
wish you we wish you a safe trip home.
>> Yeah. A long extension cord.
» Yeah. A long extension cord.
Thank you all.
>> The other thing do I think with yourself
» The other thing do I think with yourself
coming out is if there's ever students
or whatever they should come to our
areas you know to to recommend to them
to come to rural and listen to
conversations like this you know because
it is different urban to rural
>> you know
» you know
>> I partic have you heard of the 10 peaks
» I partic have you heard of the 10 peaks
program
>> I participate in that it's very
» I participate in that it's very
interesting it's uh run out of um lome
and it's for rural central Alberta uh
high school students to get a sense
about energy and broadstrokes so it's
the person who started is you from oil
and gas but they're sort of wanting to
get kids exposure to you know why are we
talking about renewables why are we
talking about carbon capture climate
policy etc and um and I've gone out and
there's maybe 600 kids in an auditorium
in Lome and I give talks on
>> does does an electric vehicle work in
» does does an electric vehicle work in
the winter it's it's really great
because uh these kids ask great
questions I think they come away from it
with they they've learned something. The
speakers I tend to be pretty good,
pretty balanced. Um, so it's yeah, I
think it's called 10 peaks. I highly
recommend if if you have the opportunity
to connect your school system into it
because
>> can you connect with a Calgary school or
» can you connect with a Calgary school or
an Edmonton school too
kids realize that they can't rely on an
EV vehicle out here? You know what I
mean? So, we want to really educate
those urban kids um what we have to go
through out here that not everybody can
have EV, you know.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
» Yeah. Yeah.
>> But sorry.
» But sorry.
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> Boy, obviously you've touched some
» Boy, obviously you've touched some
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> 10 spots.
» 10 spots.
>> It's really positive. No, thank you a
» It's really positive. No, thank you a
lot. This is awesome. So,
>> all right.
» all right.
>> Okay. Council,
» Okay. Council,
>> just a comment. 30 years ago when we
» just a comment. 30 years ago when we
went from a a regular rate of power to a
commercial rate, we were running a big
hog setup. If we
whatever our commercial rate spiked at
for a month is what we were built for
the month. And I panicked and said,
"Holy, when we got it into the system,
our rates were 60% of what they were
before." So retail has an opportunity
here to sell that staging of charging
and all that kind of stuff. Just on
their billing part, if they the retail
part has to step up, not be mandated by
that.
>> But the system has to change to allow
» But the system has to change to allow
for it to
>> Can I just one more? Yeah, there are
» Can I just one more? Yeah, there are
some changes. The Alberta Utilities
Commission has actually started down a
pathway of trying to get more innovation
from the retailer front by allowing for
time varying rates that um
you know the rate varies so dramatically
at the wholesale level. And if you told
somebody that, you know, I think I've
translated this into gasoline prices,
within a day, the effective price of
electricity translated to gasoline would
range from
about $2 a liter to 5 cents a liter. If
if your gas station's fluctuating like
that, you got better believe people are
going to keep an eye on when the five
cent per liter prices are. And they're
quite predictable, too,
>> uh, and seen in advance. So, and and I
» uh, and seen in advance. So, and and I
think maybe that's why we're seeing such
flexibility on the EV charging front is
people have a mindset of, you know,
driving to Costco to save 5 cents for
gas. Um, if you can save, you know, get
your your power at half the price at
other times, it's pretty um sort of part
of our id to go do that.
>> Money motivates, right?
» Money motivates, right?
>> Yeah, money motivates. And there's
» Yeah, money motivates. And there's
something about saving on your fuel for
your car that really motivates people
more than anything else. Okay. Um, I'm
gonna allow one more question. I'm just
going to tell council that every
question we ask reduces the amount of
break time you're going to get.
>> Stop it. No, I
» Stop it. No, I
>> Go ahead, Councelor Cunningham.
» Go ahead, Councelor Cunningham.
>> Sorry. I just had to say quickly because
» Sorry. I just had to say quickly because
something you said and I'm appreciate
your email. I'm going to pass it on to
my husband because when he tells me and
follows me around the house and tells me
to shut every light off, I'm going to
tell him. I heard a presentation today
that said that doesn't affect the cost
of the power. So, thank you so much for
that. I really appreciate it. less so
than it used to.
>> Once again, thank you very much, uh, Dr.
» Once again, thank you very much, uh, Dr.
Schaefer. We very much appreciate your
time spent with us today and your
willingness to spend that time. Thank
you.
>> Welcome.
» Welcome.
>> Thank you very much.
» Thank you very much.
>> Okay. Cheers.
» Okay, we are going to take a 8 minute
break. So we are in recess to 10:35.
Okay, it's 10:35 and I'm going to call
our meeting back to order.
And the next item on our agenda
will be 6.1,
which is the second quarter variance
report.
So, welcome Miss Von Murbach.
It's been a while since we've seen you,
but welcome here and we look forward to
the information that you have for us.
» Good morning, council.
>> Morning.
» Morning.
>> Today, I'm bringing forward the second
» Today, I'm bringing forward the second
quarter variance report. Um, so this
report speaks to the the county's
progress in terms of against the budget
to June 30th, 2025.
Um, it reports on our operating budget
performance to date. It reports on the
status of all approved operating and
capital projects and it also provides
some other supplementary information on
key financial indicators.
So the first piece that I always go over
is appendix A, which is our operating
budget variance report by function. Um
so again, this relates to everything
that happened up until June 30th.
It at this point we're projecting a
$3,30,000
um positive variance on our budget, a
surplus.
However, most of that is actually made
up of kind of one-off items that aren't
anticipated to be a part of the budget.
So of that 1,382,000
or 44% of that variance relates to the
receipt of unbudgeted funds from
investment revenues. Um this is an
intentional piece and we've you've seen
that in the last few years where
council's opted to not increase
investment returns within the core
operating budget due to those returns
being something that fluctuates
depending on what's going on in the um
in the economy. And so that amount is
actually, you'll see in this report,
requested to be refunded into reserves.
And that's kind of the strategy that the
council's adopted that those funds um
build reserves rather than um fund the
operating budget. An additional
$1,120,000
or 35.8% of that um surplus relates to
the receipt of funds for the sale of
capital equipment. Again, this is a
similar item in the budget. We um budget
for $100,000 worth of capital equipment
plan sales every year, but we know that
that amount is not likely to be the
amount we get from selling capital
equipment and anything over and above
that goes into the capital equipment
plan reserve. And again, that's just a
function of keeping things stable within
the operating budget rather than
actually trying to forecast what we
might sell in any given year from
reserves and then having that be a
fluctuating number within our re
revenues each year. So when you take
those two kind of um isolated items off
that are not really a part of the core
operating budget variance, our remaining
variance is $627,621.
Um which represents a 1.9% overall
variance from the budget. Again, this is
forecasted to year end. So that number
can fluctuate when we get closer to the
end of the year. Um that's a fairly
tight amount. 1.9% is not super
comfortable, right? administration
really kind of feels that that four to
6% is sort of a comfortable range where
when you're fluctuating from the budget,
you know that there's some flexibility
within operations to handle things. Um,
when you start getting into those
smaller percentages, you're just that
much more at risk of going over budget
and things, having to come back to
council to readress where that operating
budget sits and what that looks like.
Um, and when that happens, that can also
affect how operations can happen because
we're we end up sitting at a place where
we can't do something that we might need
to do operationally because we don't
have the available budget.
So, with that, that's kind of your
overall summary of where that surplus
comes from. Um, when you look at
revenues, there's a $2.5 million favor
favorable variance forecasted to year
end. Again, most of that is those
investment returns and the capital
equipment plan sales. But on a little
more detail, um, license licenses and
permits has a $19,000 unfavorable
variance. So this relates to planning
and development permits, which are just
coming in lower than they were last year
and what we might have expected to see
this year. Operating grants have a
$7,500 unfavorable variance. Um, this
relates to a decrease in the ASB grant
support from the province. Other revenue
has a $4,500 favorable variance which
relates to water department service
connections and the convenience fee of
paid to on paid to online payments. Um
those water department service
connections are something that we
typically don't budget for in that
category again because it's something
that we can't really anticipate how many
we have. Um but it's also sorry actually
that comes later I lied. Ignore me on
that part. um those are a little bit
different than the stuff that comes into
um special taxes and frontage.
Sale of goods and services has a $1,300
unfavorable variance which has a couple
favorable variances and unfavorable
variances included. There's $13,000
favorable for various revenues including
call revenue, safety codes, dust
control, scrap metal sales, oil field
permitting, waste charges, map sales,
bylaw enforcement, and paid parking.
Um, there's $9,000 favorable variance
related to planning department fees. And
then there's a 758 $7,600 favorable
variance related to water charges. Then
there's a $31,000 unfavorable variance
in bulk water sales.
Sales to other governments has a $48,000
unfavorable variance. Um, this includes
$18,000 favorable related to the un an
unbudgeted transfer site agreement. a
$10,000 favorable variance related to
the Aqua 7 contract, a $75,000
unfavorable variance. This relates to
the Carbon Management Service Services
contract, which is not proceeding.
There's also a corresponding um
favorable variance in salaries and wages
related to that happening. And then
there's a $1,200 unfavorable variance
related to various revenues, including
dispatch services and peace officer
contracts.
Rental income has a $6,000 favorable
variance related to building rentals.
Penalties and fines has a $74,000
favorable variance relating to penalties
on property taxes. There's higher than
we anticipated a rear's balance is this
year that resulted in that.
Property taxes has a $12,000 unfavorable
variance. This just relates to
assessment adjustments that have
happened after the tax rate bylaw was
adopted.
Special taxes and frontage has a $13,500
favorable variance. This is where that
$25,000 favorable variance related to
riser connections. Um, they aren't
included in our core operating budget
because they're something we don't
really know how much to anticipate every
year. And council might recall in Q4, we
generally take anything that's above um
budget in those amounts and put them
back into the water reserve at the end
of the year.
And then there's an $11,000 unfavorable
variance related to the Troshu special
levy. Um, and this is just it was
budgeted last for the budget cycle. It
was budgeted as la last year's levy
amount and then the amount that we
actually had to levy this year is lower
than we expected. Um, partly because we
overlevied last year. So, our actual
amount we actually got to reduce this
year.
Then this is where we get to these two
big favorable variances. Return on
investments is that $1,382,000
favorable variance. again and that reli
relates to the preliminary reserve
strategy that's been presented to
council. Um, and motion number one
within this report recommends the
contribution of $680,7757.
Now, I'll note that number is different
than our year-end forecast. The amount
we're actually wanting to contribute to
reserves is the amount that was over and
above expected budget as of June 30th.
So, council will see when we go through
a fourth quarter report. Anything over
and above that we remain remains after
that point, we'll put that into reserves
as well. And then capital equipment plan
sales has that $1,120,000
favorable variance. And again, motion
number two is recommending that that
amount be contributed to the reserves to
the capital equipment plan reserve.
Then in terms of expense summary,
there's a $617,916
favorable variance forecasted to the end
of the year. Included in that contract
goods and services has $134,000
favorable variance which includes
$36,000 favorable relating to training
conferences and memberships. $25,000
favorable related to various items
across departments. This includes IT
contracts, public land mowing, equipment
rentals, bylaw enforcement, inspection
services, contracted gowns maintenance,
fire reimbursements, freight and
postage, and waste collection. When I
lump a bunch of those into one line item
on here, it's because each individual
one doesn't have a significant variance
to really note and it's just a little
bit more simplified rather than end up
with 50 line items explaining contract
goods and services. We kind of lump
those ones that really aggregately they
don't none of them independently have a
large variance.
Then there's $23,000 favorable related
to advertising and PR. $18,000 favorable
in building repair and maintenance
initiatives. $11,000 favorable for
contracted vehicle maintenance. $11,000
favorable related to professional fees,
$10,000 favorable related to Landare
programming, 5,000 favorable for council
training and development, 5,000
favorable for major maintenance
initiatives, and $10,000 unfavorable
related to insurance.
Then we look at materials, goods,
supplies, and utilities, which has a
forecasted $187,000 favorable variance.
includes $50,000 favorable related to
line painting, which is not proceeding
in 2025,
$39,000 favorable for weed control
chemicals, $36,000 favorable for general
goods, small tools, and supplies across
departments, $22,000 favorable in
utilities, $17,000 favorable in
miscellaneous items, including shop
supplies, grater blades, culverts, and
dust control chemicals.
$14,000 favorable for fuel and $9,000
favorable related to utility department
supplies.
When we look at salaries and wages,
there's a $227,000 favorable variance.
This includes $145,000 favorable related
to that management services contract not
proceeding. Again, that's where we were
anticipating collecting half of that
amount through revenue with that
contract agreement and then it's not
proceeding. So, you see those two
variances. there's an $82,000 favorable
variance related to core salaries, group
benefits, seasonal wages, overtime, and
employee turnover.
Then under provision for allowances,
we're looking at a $37,000 favor dollar
favorable variance. Um, and this is just
due to the anticipated tax write offs
for uncollectible accounts that we
anticipate bringing forward to council
at a future meeting.
Purchases from other governments has a
$9,600 unfavorable variance and this
relates to the Drumheller Waste
Commission payment increase.
Transfer to other governments has a
$36,000 favorable var variance which
includes variances for fire agreements
and the TROU special levy.
and then transfers to individuals and
organizations has a $4,500 favorable
variances relate to relates relating to
grant programming anticipated to not be
fully utilized.
Um so that finishes appendix A. Um then
appendix B has basically the same.
>> Councilor Phobes, you have a question.
» Councilor Phobes, you have a question.
>> Uh just back up underneath where it said
» Uh just back up underneath where it said
you had an unfavorable for insurance. Is
that across the whole organization like
insurance costs increased
>> through the chair? That is correct.
» through the chair? That is correct.
That's across the organization.
>> Thank you.
» Any other questions at this time? I'm
not seeing any. So if you
>> go ahead, please.
» go ahead, please.
>> Absolutely. So appendix B has basically
» Absolutely. So appendix B has basically
it's all about the operating budget as
well. It's just broken out by department
rather than by functional category. So,
I've also summarized the key driving
factors of by each department. Um, under
council, there's no revenues associated
with council, but there's a $16,000
favorable variance related to contracted
services and salaries.
There's corporate re items. So, that all
includes like property taxes and all the
things that are sort of not really
attributed to one specific department.
Has that $2,562,000
favorable variance. So, this relates to
that return on investments in capital
equipment plan sales. again, most of
both of which have motions to contribute
those funds into reserves. Um,
associated with this report, there's a
$52,000 favorable variance that
primarily relates to transfers to other
governments and as as well as provision
for allowances which are related to
uncollectible property taxes. The Office
of the CEO has that $75,000 unfavorable
revenue variance. Again, that's that
carbon management services pro not
proceeding. Um, conversely, there's that
fa there's a favorable variance um of
135,000 in the office of the CEO
department um primarily relating to the
management services contract and it's
offset by a small unfavorable variance
in core core salaries for the
department.
Corporate services again has no revenues
directly associated with that department
and 98 there's $98,000 of favorable
variance in expenditures and that
relates to contracted services,
materials and and salaries and benefits.
Transportation, all revenues are on
budget as or anticipated to be on budget
with no significant variances um
anticipated. And then expenditures have
a $2,600 favorable variance which
relates to road primarily relating to
roadline painting which is actually
offset by some unfavorable salaries,
insurance, and utility variances.
Environmental services has a $35,000
favorable revenue variance related to
the water connection fees and then a
$68,000 favorable variance um related to
contracted services, salaries,
materials, and supplies and offset by an
unfavorable variance in the Drum Hiller
Waste Commission payment. Facilities
again, no associated revenues. There's a
$28,000 favorable expenditure variance
related to contracted services,
salaries, and materials.
Enforcement has a $7,000 unfavorable
variance relating to fines and callout
services. A $16,000 favorable variance
related to contracted services and
salaries. And then fire has a $16,000
favorable variance related to rental
revenue, safety codes, and call revenue,
and an $11,000 favorable revenue or
expenditure variance relating to the
provincial policing payment.
disaster has a $2,800 favorable revenue
variance related to reimbursements for
training facilitated by the county and a
very small favorable expenditure
variance related to salaries.
Planning has an unfavorable revenue
variance of $10,000 related to licenses
and permits and expenses have a $14,000
favorable variance related to contracted
services and salaries.
Uh, agricultural services has an $10,000
unfavorable variance related to a
reduction in provincial operating grants
and extension programming revenues and
an $89,000 favorable expenditure
variance primarily relating to weed
control chemicals as well as landare
programming, salaries, and fuel. Parks
has a $2,700 unfavorable variance
related to the sale of services and a
$54,000 unfavorable variance related to
contracted services, materials, and
salaries.
Cemeteries has a $1,000 favorable
variance related to plot sales.
Parks has a favorable var Yeah, sorry, I
said unfavorable. I think that was
favorable. Sorry, I had to double check
that.
That should actually say favorable
variance under parks expenditures.
I was trying to figure out how the heck
they were over on that. I couldn't
figure out in my head. Sorry about that.
Um, and then a $1,000 favorable variance
related to plot sales in cemeteries and
an $11,000 favorable variance for
seasonal wages, contracted services, and
community grants.
Economic development, again, no
associated revenues with that
department. And there's an $18,000
favorable variance related to
advertising, professional fees, and
salaries.
So, that summarizes everything related
to the operating budget.
>> Um, councelor Cunningham, you have a
» Um, councelor Cunningham, you have a
question. So, um, question maybe for my,
um, fellow council members that are on
egg services. I'm just wondering what
was the province's reasoning for
reducing that provincial operating grant
or was there a reason given?
>> Was there ever a reason?
» Was there ever a reason?
>> Uh, well, um, I guess we have a
» Uh, well, um, I guess we have a
delegation this afternoon. Maybe we
could ask, but just just curious if
there was
>> Excellent point.
» Excellent point.
>> That program keeps getting down and down
» That program keeps getting down and down
every year. like it's they're just
downloading costs to the mut.
>> Mr. Ganon,
» Mr. Ganon,
>> thank you through the chair. I I believe
» thank you through the chair. I I believe
some of the shift is also within the
grants requirements and programming. Uh
so some of the things that used to be
covered uh for programming has actually
shifted that responsibility. So there's
been some changes within the actual
programming of what the grant can
actually cover versus uh what it
actually does now. So that's where some
of the shift in that funding uh actually
came from as well.
» And I had a question on the policing. Um
so does that mean that we paid less for
policing than we anticipated?
>> Uh my understanding is we are
» Uh my understanding is we are
anticipated to pay marginally less. We
haven't actually seen so they bill from
March till like April 1st to March 31st.
My understanding is it's slightly down.
>> So we're anticipating that they're
» So we're anticipating that they're
continuing that pattern.
>> Yes. I don't know that it'll continue to
» Yes. I don't know that it'll continue to
go down. It doesn't seem that we've seen
an increase from what we had originally
told us that that we'd top out on.
>> So, from what we budgeted anticipating
» So, from what we budgeted anticipating
the province was going to ask for, we're
seeing a slight reduction from what we
thought we might see.
>> That is correct.
» That is correct.
>> Okay. Thank you.
I don't see any other questions right
now, so I think you're good to go
forward.
>> Okay. Um, then we move on to operating
» Okay. Um, then we move on to operating
projects. So, there's 23 operating
projects included in the 2025 budget.
This includes projects that were
approved within the 2025 budget and any
that were carried forward from 2024. Of
that 17 have no projected variance based
on the project progress as of June 30th
and six are projected to be completed
under budget.
And because all those projects are
funded out of reserves, anything that is
completed under budget, that is just
money that will stay in reserves rather
than being pulled out. So we actually
don't pull that money officially out. We
allocated that it's coming out, but
until we actually expenditure, we don't
pull them directly out of reserves.
And then for capital projects, we have
30 capital projects in 2025. Um, and
again, 16 have no projected variance um,
based on the project progress as of June
30th, and 14 are projected to be
completed under budget.
Um, cash and investment summary, we
continue to generate reasonably strong
rates of return on investments, not like
we saw maybe a year or two ago. Um,
currently we're looking at a range of
3.3% to 6.05%.
And these returns are going to decrease
a bit in third quarter due to decreases
in the prime interest rate and the
renewal of GIC's at rates lower than we
achieved from recent years.
And then the reserve continuity again is
always included in ter just to show um
what the available balances of reserves
and what those transactions are looking
like. Um the reserves are only ever
touched if council approves new
contributions, expenditures or amends
project budgets um or projects are
completed under budget then that money
returns. So when council looks at the
2025 available balance is really the
unallocated balance. Nothing has like no
commitments have been made out of that
amount. And then the projected ending
balance takes into account the motions
that we're recommending within this
report and also takes into account
potential like our projected underbudget
projects but those won't be realized
until we actually finalize those
projects.
And that is the end of my second quarter
variance report. Unless there are
further questions.
>> All right, questions um related to
» All right, questions um related to
second quarter variance.
Clear as mud.
Okay, I'm not
seeing any questions at this point.
So um we want um motion about the
contribution
uh to the reserve and the cap the two
different reserves the parks and the
capital equipment plan. Okay.
» Councelor Penner. So, I'll start off. I
make the first motion that council
approves the contribution of $680,757
to the parks reserve in relation to
investment returns.
>> Okay. So, this is the revenue that we've
» Okay. So, this is the revenue that we've
generated on the investment side and the
recommendation is at this point that go
into the parks reserve. Okay. Just to be
clear, any questions or discussion
related to the motion to approve a
contribution of $680,757
to the parks reserve in relation to
investment returns. Any questions,
comment?
Not seeing any. So I am going to ask the
question. All those in favor
and that is carried unanimously. Thank
you,
Councelor Wtock.
And I would like to move that council
approve a contribution of 1,120,898
to the capital equipment plan reserve in
relation to the sale of capital
equipment.
All right.
So equipment sales are good, eh?
All right. So, we do have a motion to
approve a contribution of 1,120,898
to the capital equipment plan reserve in
relation to the sale of capital
equipment. So, revenues generated by
capital equipment sales going back to
the capital equipment reserve.
Any questions, discussion, or comment?
Okay, I'm not seeing any, so I'm going
to ask the question. All those in favor?
And that is also carried unanimously.
Um,
and do we need a motion to just approve
the second quarter variance report as
presented?
» Mr. Hogan,
>> through the chair, I think we usually do
» through the chair, I think we usually do
get one. Technically, you don't. You've
made motions and actioned it, but I
think historically, we've had one.
>> Okay. So, then I would look A motion to
» Okay. So, then I would look A motion to
uh receive the second quarter variance
report as presented.
>> Councelor Christie.
» Councelor Christie.
>> So moved.
» Okay. We have a motion to receive the
second quarter variance report as
presented or for information.
Um any questions, comment, discussion?
If not, all those in favor and that is
also carried unanimously.
And thank you very much, Miss Von
Murbach. And you can tell everyone in
the background there who's doing all
that hard work, thank you on behalf of
council.
Thank you.
Okay, we have a delegation in three
seconds. Um, the Ballard group.
So, we're going to take a small uh
recess to allow them to get set up. Um,
and please hear me say small recess.
>> Absolutely.
All right, it's 11:02 and I am going to
um call our meeting back to order. Um
and I guess I'm going to say welcome. Um
if I get your name wrong, is it Batty?
>> Yes.
» Yes.
>> Okay. And Miss McCaffrey.
» Okay. And Miss McCaffrey.
>> Yep.
» Yep.
>> Okay. Welcome here. Before I get you to
» Okay. Welcome here. Before I get you to
And of course,
Fallon, welcome. U before I get you to
start your presentation, I'm just going
to get um the people in this room here
to introduce themselves to you and then
if you would just give us a brief
introduction and then your presentation,
that would be greatly appreciated. So,
I'll start with you, Councelor
Cunningham, if you would please. And
>> good morning. Thanks for being here.
» good morning. Thanks for being here.
Laura Lee Michelle Cunningham, Division
5. And I was lucky enough to meet you
folks on last Wednesday night at Three
Hills Discovery Night. So nice to see
you again.
>> Good morning. Uh Jerry Witstock,
» Good morning. Uh Jerry Witstock,
division three. That's the Acne London
area.
>> Good morning, Debbie. I'm in division
» Good morning, Debbie. I'm in division
two in the Swallow area.
>> And I'm Ken King and I represent
» And I'm Ken King and I represent
division seven, which is basically the
northeast portion. So kind of Troshu
north and east of Troshu to the river
Buffalo Jump that area.
>> Good morning. I'm Fay McGee, division
» Good morning. I'm Fay McGee, division
one. So that's the southeast corner that
comes right up to the drum area.
>> Good morning folks, division 4.
» Good morning folks, division 4.
>> Wade Christie, division 6. So I'm in the
» Wade Christie, division 6. So I'm in the
northwest corner.
>> Go ahead, Mr. Hogan.
» Go ahead, Mr. Hogan.
>> Morning. Mike Hogan, chief
» Morning. Mike Hogan, chief
administrative officer.
>> Good morning. Carolyn Vanderl,
» Good morning. Carolyn Vanderl,
legislative services legislative
services manager.
>> Good morning, Kevin Ganon. Nice to see
» Good morning, Kevin Ganon. Nice to see
you again. Hey, morning folks. Mike Zer,
director of infrastructure.
>> Good morning, Theresa Cochran, director
» Good morning, Theresa Cochran, director
of corporate services.
>> All right, so I'll turn it over to the
» All right, so I'll turn it over to the
three of you. Um, and uh, welcome here
and uh, anytime you're ready.
>> Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you
» Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you
all for uh, for having us and
introducing yourselves. Good morning. My
name is Assad Bati. I am a senior
associate with the ballot group. And on
this project that we're going to be
presenting about, I am the research
lead. So, I'm taking care of things like
methodology, uh, execution of the
project and ultimately the strategy that
we're going to be drafting at the end of
things. I'll let my colleague here, Bri,
introduce herself as well.
» Um, yep. So, my name is Bri. Um, I'm a
research analyst with uh with Ballad.
Um, I have a background in recreation,
sport, and tourism. Um, so that will be
my main role with this project. Um, and
yeah, I've been with Ballad for about a
year now. And, um, yeah, very excited to
be working on this project and meeting
all of you today.
Sorry.
>> And I'm Fallon Sherlock. I am just here
» And I'm Fallon Sherlock. I am just here
as support uh, as uh, they provide the
presentation and the information.
>> Perfect. So yeah, without further ado, I
» Perfect. So yeah, without further ado, I
think we can get started. So yeah, we're
going to be talking today about the
parks and recreation needs assessment
that we are working on. Uh this
presentation is going to be a project
brief. So it's to provide information on
exactly what's happening here, uh who we
are exactly what's our methodology, what
has been done so far, some timelines and
next steps. So we'll get started. Um in
the agenda exactly like I had mentioned
you can see that we're going to start
with a company background work on
talking about the project team and an
overview of the project as well. We're
then going to be talking about
methodology specifically engagement
because there is a uh significant
engagement uh goal that we have in this
project that I'll talk a little bit more
about later. Uh the project schedule and
then next steps about what we're going
to be doing.
So, first of all, I'll talk a little bit
more about Ballot Group, the company
that both me and Bri are from. So, we're
a Alberta based consulting firm. Uh, we
operate out of six offices across the
province and we have over 60 staff. Um,
Ballot Group is a um a company that's,
you know, since 2012, we worked on both
things to do with employment services as
well as consulting. And consulting is
the team that me and Bri are a part of.
In consulting, we've worked on over 400
projects uh since 2012 as mentioned in
different areas including community
development, tourism, recreation,
housing, economic development, strategic
planning, and other um areas as well.
We're really well verssed especially in
strategy development and needs analysis
which are both relevant um areas for
this project that we're working on. Now,
our approach generally across all these
different fields is a listen first and
then react philosophy. We're very much
about making sure that we're not doing
cookie cutter solutions, for example, or
using too many templates or things like
that. We really want to ensure that we
are understanding, acknowledging, and
acting on the fact that each community
and each project we work on is unique
and different.
uh there's um going to be specific needs
that we have to take into account for
every single project that we work on and
we take that to heart and ensure that
all of our project methodologies are
tailored specifically for the client
that we're working with at that time.
Our focus is to be engagementdriven. So
we want to ensure that engagement is a
key focus in all of our methodology and
we want to be evidence-based. We want to
ultimately conclude um make conclusions
and draft strategies and recommendations
that are based in the reality of what we
have found throughout the project.
And then in terms of our experience, we
have worked across the province and also
in Saskatchewan and in BC and other
areas as well with municipalities,
indigenous governments, community
organizations, nonprofits, so on and so
forth. uh we have worked with a lot of
different groups basically in a lot of
different places especially in rural
areas of the province which we'll talk a
little bit more about when we go into
our team.
So um I won't go and give the whole
spiel of uh basically everything but as
for myself um I'm a senior associate
here at ballad my experience is that I
was previously the director of housing
at the rural development network for the
sustainable housing initiative where I
work primarily in affordable housing
developments. Um because of this
experience I have a lot of um uh
knowledge and uh knowithal about the
specific let's say challenges and
circumstances that a lot of rural
communities face across the province.
And so I'm able to making sure that that
context is taken into account when
working on different projects that um we
work on here at Ballad. Erin, who wasn't
able to make it today is our engagement
lead. Um so he's an IAP2 trained
engagement facilitator and what that
means is that he's able to ensure that
when we are conducting engagement doing
things like surveys, focus groups, so on
and so forth. We'll learn more about
that later on that we are completing
them with a level of expertise that's
required for wholesome engagement but
also at the same time in a way that's
going to ensure that the outcomes we are
desiring are being achieved.
He uh likewise has a lot of experience
working with uh different remote uh
rural and remote communities all across
not only the province but also into the
territories Manitoba and Saskatchewan as
well.
Holly Johnson also who wasn't able to
make it today as our project manager. Uh
so she's another senior associate and
she takes care of ensuring that all the
administrative tasks that are assigned
to the project related to the project
are being taken care of. That includes
coordination with the county uh staff,
includes things like setting up
meetings, uh preparing everything that
has to do with billing, um meeting
notes, so on and so forth. Holly makes
sure that that is all taken care of so
we can focus on the actual execution of
the project. And then Bri here um is our
research analyst. She is the primary
project writer for this. She has
experience in working on similar
projects regarding parks and recreation
as well as in engagement. So she's very
well-versed in the work that we're doing
on here and um is looking to bring that
experience and that expertise to this
project.
» So the project overview, what exactly
are we trying to achieve with this
project and what is our focus area? What
is our outcome? So the purpose of this
project is to provide Nih Hill County
with a clear understanding of the
current state of your recreation and
park systems including facilities,
programs, spaces as well as parks to
identify strategic priorities for the
next 10 years. Uh we want to in summary
look at all of the related assets that
currently exist, understand where we
want to be in the future, and then
create a plan for working towards that
future.
The focus areas are to understand what
facilities and programs currently exist,
evaluate their condition, their usage,
identify where service gaps or
opportunities exist for improvement,
and then consider the role of tourism,
changing population trends, and of
course alignment with the council's
strategic plans.
Our outcome then is to deliver a needs
assessment that blends community input,
facility data, and best practices that
will then give prioritized
recommendations for how exactly NIH
Hills County's recreation system can be
built to be sustainable, inclusive, and
ready for the future, achieving all the
goals that not only council has, but
also that would benefit the community in
the long run.
In terms of our scope and methodology to
achieve this outcome and to achieve this
project, uh we're going to be working on
a um a scope that includes all
recreation facilities, spaces, parks,
and uh programs that are used by Neil
County residents. This includes as
mentioned county-owned parks,
campgrounds and trails facilities in
internal municipalities, Acme, Lynden,
Carbon, Three Hills, Troshue for
example, partner operated assets as well
as key private and tourism facilities
that serve the public. This includes for
example Horseshoe Canyon.
We will also then want to assess these
in certain areas and those areas are to
talk about the facility condition, life
cycle stage and amenities, the
accessibility and geographic coverage of
these assets that exist, their usage
patterns, their operational models,
things like service gaps and
opportunities for collaboration. And
then the impact that these assets have
on tourism and regional partnership
potential.
Ultimately this gets into our
methodology. So this is where we're
looking at how do we take what we have
for our scope. How do we take how do we
um how we want to assess things and then
actually make make a methodology that
will result in the outcome that we want.
that is through data collection that
will be informed by community engagement
to ultimately lead to analysis and
recommendations. So our methodology as
mentioned before is a mixed method that
takes into account both things like best
practices and data analysis that we can
collect from secondary sources as well
as generating primary data from things
like engagement.
So um the things that we'll be looking
at as part of our methodology are
facility inventory and GIS mapping.
We'll talk a little bit more about this
later about what's been achieved right
now, but it's on the ground asset
mapping to actually visit all the assets
that we're looking at and talking about,
see things like their condition, um,
assess them, so on and so forth. We're
then going to be doing demographic and
economic analysis. This is important to
understand future trends and things that
might be happening that could impact the
county in the future. We want to ensure
that we're not just making a plan for
now, but a plan that will still be
effective uh, in a decade's time.
Benchmarking is something that we're uh
going to be including as part of this
project. This is comparisons with other
similar communities so that we can see
things like what's working, what's not
working, and what should Nihill County
consider for their own parks and
recreation needs. We're then going to be
doing community engagement. This will be
a mix of public surveys, workshops, and
openhouse, so on and so forth. We'll
talk a little bit more about um what
we're doing exactly for engagement and
what we've already done. And um as
mentioned, that's going to be a big part
of this project because we have specific
um um goals to engage as much as
possible with as many county residents
as possible. So this plan is really
informed by what you know people living
in the county think.
And then best practice research. We're
going to be identifying innovative
cost-effective models that fit NIH's
rural context. So, not just looking at
the best practices and what should be
done when it comes to parks and
recreation, but how does that fit N Knee
Hills context and how does that work in
a way that could be beneficial for the
county.
So, we can talk about what we've done so
far. So, um this is a little bit updated
now because the presentation was sent in
August and we've been working on it uh
hard still since then. So, I'll update
you also with things that have been done
since this presentation has been made.
So, we've done the project kickoff
already. We've started the project. We
have met with the um county uh project
team. We've assigned a PSC. We call them
a project steering committee on the
county side that helps ensure that the
county's needs and requirements are
being met. Uh and then we've confirmed
things like scope, timelines, and
deliverables. We've also done engagement
planning. So, we finalize a detailed
engagement plan that meets participation
targets, includes surveys, workshops, so
on and so forth. as discussed. And then
we've also done on the ground asset
surveying. So we did a 3-day asset
survey that covered Wimborn, Thorington,
areas like Horseshoe Cannon, so on and
so forth. You can see the full list on
the slide deck, of course. And then we
documented things like conditions,
amenities, usage rates, uh signage, so
on and so forth. That will help inform
our analysis.
uh Troshu and Three Hills as mentioned
there were still upcoming at that time
but I'm happy to say that as of last
week we have also done a full asset
mapping of things in Troshu and Three
Hills. So we are actually complete in
our acid mapping for this project.
So this is just a map showing where we
have been. Um our route was uh a little
bit of a horseshoe in a sense uh
ironically. So we started in Wimbornne
and ended basically in Huxley over those
three days. And so we visited a lot of
the areas that exist in the county, saw
a lot of the beautiful sites, the parks,
the uh recreation facilities that exist,
which gives us a really good in-person
context of what is working, what maybe
requires a little bit of adjustment, so
on and so forth.
And as mentioned, this map at the time
was made with the three-day visit just,
but we have also done three hills in
Troshu since that time.
So, I'm going to talk a little bit about
engagement now because engagement is, as
mentioned, a really important part of
our process, but especially for this
project, we want to make sure we have a
very thorough engagement methodology
because we want to reach as many county
residents as possible. So the purpose of
the engagement is to ensure as mentioned
before that the needs assessment
reflects lived experiences, the
priorities and aspirations of residents
and is not just informed by otherwise
secondary data and what you could be
called cold analysis which doesn't take
into account the needs and priorities of
locals.
We're reaching residents across all
hamlets, villages, and rural areas in
the county. We're going to be talking to
local organizations such as agricultural
societies. We're going to be doing
target groups as well. These could
include seniors, for example, youth,
indigenous communities, even seasonal
visitors. And then the tourism and
business sector, which is most impacted
by this assessment and the assets that
we are looking at. So, this would
include tourism operators, local
businesses, and regional partners.
When it comes to how we're completing
this engagement with all these different
groups, we have the list of things here.
So, we are doing a countywide public
survey. This is online and in paper. It
will be available in the county offices
and libraries and schools to just
generally gather feedback from people
who are living in the county.
We're also going to be doing stakeholder
workshops and focus groups. So bringing
together key groups of stakeholders in a
engaging and productive way to
understand their thoughts and gather
their feedback. We're then going to be
doing targeted outreach to key groups
such as in small group meetings or even
one-on-one interviews to ensure that all
voices are heard, especially from under
reppresented groups. This might include
seniors, for example.
We're then going to be doing business
and tourism roundts. also linking
recreation planning with economic
development and visitor experience. So
not just looking at it in a silo but
seeing how it holistically fits the
overall picture in the county. And then
of course a public open house where we
will we will share draft recommendations
to validate our priorities before we
finalize the strategy. This ensures that
there's an opportunity for the public to
look at exactly what is being
recommended and seeing and making sure
that that aligns with their vision for
the future.
In terms of our timeline, um again this
is um a little bit in the past, so I'll
talk about what is being done right now,
but in July and August, we worked on
finalizing the engagement plan and then
designing survey and outreach materials,
submitting content for a utility insert
and newsletter and the newspaper and
then also doing stakeholder outreach,
beginning stakeholder outreach for the
engagement.
Late in August, we had launched a public
survey. Uh we attended discovery night
just last week. uh in early September
and then we had done stakeholder
interviews
and now into September continuing on
we're going to continue the survey
promotion u we'll talk a little bit more
about kind of what we're doing there in
terms of advertisement and such uh we
held initial workshops or sorry are
going to be holding initial workshops
and focus groups as mentioned to really
target specific groups of stakeholders.
We're going to be doing ongoing
check-ins with the PSC to see where
engagement is going and adjusting as
necessary. And then we're going to do an
engagement review at the midpoint in
September to really ensure that the
impact that we want to make sure we're
having is being achieved. So just
quickly as I mentioned in terms of
survey promotion right now the survey
has been shared when we had done
discovery night before we shared a bunch
of posters with say libraries and
churches and such um to ensure that
everybody had um an opportunity to
advertise and ensure that county
residents knew that there was a survey
going around that we want to hear their
voice. Uh but also we're going to be
doing online promotion um and other
promotions as well to ensure that as
many people as possible are reached to
in the county
into October and then November and
December. Uh we're going to be doing
targeted follow-up outreach. We're going
to be completing any remaining workshops
and focus groups and then closing the
survey and then preparing our
preliminary findings. In November and
December near the tail end of the
project, we will do community road show
sessions if required and then draft
recommendations to PSSE and staff. Uh
that ensures that again that the
recommendations before they go out to
the public are aligned with county goals
and really reflect the county's vision.
Our
anticipated deliverables uh in three
areas analysis and findings, action and
strategy and communication tools are
listed there. So for analysis and
findings, we want to present a final
report, an executive summary, facility
database, and GIS mapping. Basically,
all the work that we are doing when it
goes out to um when we're going out to
communities and doing asset mapping,
when we're doing engagement, so on and
so forth, that raw data is going to be
provided, not just our reports. So you
can look at it specifically in terms of
the data that's been collected for
action and strategy. The implementation
roadmap, funding and partnership
strategies, the actual for example
action plans that we're going to be
developing will be shared of course as
part of our deliverable package and then
communication tools. So this will
include summary visuals, maps,
infographics for county use.
Our project schedule overall now that
we've looked at engagement specifically
is that we have done the initiation as
mentioned we are working on engagement
and data collection in phase two right
now in phase three is when we're going
to be doing analysis and strategy
drafting. So we're going to analyze all
the data we collect. This is again both
the engagement data the asset data that
we've collected also secondary data
things like bench practices and
benchmarking.
And then in phase four when uh we are
basically closing out the project, we're
going to be doing that openhouse as
mentioned. We're going to incorporate
feedback that we receive from either the
public or from the PSC or council or
other uh key stakeholders as well.
Present the final need assessment and
council in January and close out the
project. Then
so for next steps as mentioned we have
already done the first little paragraph
there. We have finalized the inventory
and data collection phase that's been
complete as of last week. Uh the
engagement activities will continue into
September and October to ensure that
again we hear as much as possible from
county residents. We will then draft
strategy recommendations based on that
engagement findings based on those
engagement findings and also based on
the analysis that we complete um for
best practices and comparables as
mentioned before. and then our final
report and the council presentation is
expected in early 2026.
Thank you for uh the presentation and
the opportunity to come to your
community and I would love to open the
floor now for any questions.
>> Okay, thank you for that presentation.
» Okay, thank you for that presentation.
Um are there questions from council
related to the presentation the
information we just have received? counc
>> and m show you might be able to answer
» and m show you might be able to answer
this too. Um bracken is down
>> is a regular facility. Um and I just
» is a regular facility. Um and I just
noticed that windborn's on here twice
which I'm thinking one is KA's lake on
the map.
>> It's
» It's
so bracking brackers. Okay. Thank you
» McGee.
>> I also want to throw in Hiff that has a
» I also want to throw in Hiff that has a
ball diamond and things like that too.
Y great. Um I wanted to say I'm I'm
really impressed that you're at
Discovery Night. I really find that that
face-toface opportunity really um brings
opportunity for people to realize that
this is a real event that they can um it
personalizes it for them. I think is
what I'm trying to say. I'm was
interested to know if there's any other
persontoerson opportunity going to be
doing in this stage in other parts of
the county.
>> Yes. would be, you know, parallel to
» Yes. would be, you know, parallel to
that.
>> Yes, absolutely. Thank you, counselor.
» Yes, absolutely. Thank you, counselor.
So, um, 100% first of all, agree with
you that the inperson is what works best
in a lot of different communities.
Inerson engagement, in person coming and
showing people your face and showing
them that, you know, it it just shows
that you have a little bit of care about
what you're trying to achieve in the
project. So, 100% agree with you on
that. And yes, absolutely. I think
there's just an event coming up in a few
uh a few weeks here that we're going to
be going to for um more engagement
activities. All the open houses, focus
groups we're talking about will be
organized in person and as much as
possible, we want to make sure that the
opportunity for in-person surveys is
also um there. So yes, agree with you
100% and I think if we want to achieve
the outcomes that we've set out for, the
goals we've set out for in terms of
engagement for this project, we have to
do in person. and it will probably in my
opinion be the primary way we gather
feedback from people. So yes,
>> Mr. Gon, thank you through the chair. I
» Mr. Gon, thank you through the chair. I
I want council to really understand that
when we chose a proponent here, they
were were really strong on their
engagement numbers,
which really plays into the accuracy of
this report. No other consultant was
going to guarantee those numbers. I'll
make that very clear. So they were
extremely strong with there will be
engagement until these are met. So those
are really strong commitments from this
proponent to ensure that the county is
heard and the report has uh a lower
degree of potential error. So uh we're
very excited for the opportunity to hear
what the community is going to express
and where this might lead decisions in
the future.
>> Go ahead, Mr. Ravi.
» Go ahead, Mr. Ravi.
>> Yeah, just seconding. Uh thank you um
» Yeah, just seconding. Uh thank you um
Kevin and just seconding exactly what
was just said. So all of the timelines
and everything that were uh proposed is
assuming for example we're meeting those
goals. If we're not meeting the goals
for engagement we will do we are more
than happy to continue to work as long
as it's needed to ensure that those
engagement numbers are met because um as
was just said the accuracy of the report
to make sure it's not a document frankly
that ends up just on a shelf and is
never used and collects dusk. We need to
make sure that we're listening to all
the county residents. So, we're going to
be doing engagement for as long as
needed to reach those outcomes, reach
the goal, reach a level of comfort that
we have heard from residents and that
this document is going to be something
that really guides our future.
>> Councor Phobes,
» Councor Phobes,
>> I think this question is more for um
» I think this question is more for um
administration. Um, didn't we do a Can
you just remind me? Didn't we do a
feasibility study a little while ago?
Will that information also be used in
our facilities
that they're looking at? feasibility
study related to
>> the buildings and what they needed and
» the buildings and what they needed and
those type of things. Did we not do a
feasibility study on all of our
buildings that the county held a while
ago?
>> Isn't that a facility assessment or Mr.
» Isn't that a facility assessment or Mr.
Hogan, can you help clarify for us,
please?
>> A few, Mr. Chair. I suspect that
» A few, Mr. Chair. I suspect that
councelor Fobes is referring to the
facility condition assessment.
>> Um, so that was going through a number
» Um, so that was going through a number
of the buildings looking at their at um
life cycle, current state, things like
that. So that information does exist.
That project is still ongoing.
>> Okay. Thank you.
» Okay. Thank you.
>> So, some of that data exists, some of it
» So, some of that data exists, some of it
is not there yet.
>> Perfect. Thank you.
» Sure, Miss Sherlock. Please.
>> Sure. You'll let me talk?
» Sure. You'll let me talk?
>> Yes, absolutely.
» Yes, absolutely.
>> Just for clarification, that uh facility
» Just for clarification, that uh facility
assessment was strictly to Nihill County
facilities um and was only to buildings.
And so this um general assessment with
uh the inventory that we're completing
for the recreation side will also
account things like playgrounds, the
campground overall um things the
facilities that aren't county facilities
as well. Looking at um you know the TroU
Pool, the Three Hills Aquatic Center,
things like that. So it it just gives
that broader scope and it's less of a
building condition and more of a um you
know recreation availability inventory.
Um looking at these facilities, you
know, a general life cycle of where
they're at and then um you know what
their usage is and who's who's going to
them, how they're they're being utilized
within the community. um and whether
that opportunity is there for expansion
or redirection into different um
opportunities.
» So I guess um sorry councelor
Cunningham, I'll let you go first and
then I'll jump in.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um so because I was
» Okay. Thank you. Um so because I was
there last Wednesday and um we did get
quite a few surveys um delivered. I have
got some feedback um from some rate
pairs already. little bit of confusion
around um some of the survey questions.
I know like number six says, "Please
indicate how often you use the following
indoor facilities in Nihill County." Um
the Do you go ahead? Okay. Um the
aquatic center. So we don't have an
indoor aquatic facility within Nihill
County. So would that want to be worded
in Nihill County and our urban partners?
Like I just somebody the feedback was
just it was confusing because some of
these facilities we don't actually have
in Nihill County,
>> right? And I the intention is that it
» right? And I the intention is that it
wouldn't be specific to in Nihill
County. It's just overall how often are
you using this type of facility.
>> Okay. Because it specifically says
» Okay. Because it specifically says
Nihill County. So I wondered if we would
want to change the wording on that. They
just found it very confusing.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
» Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. We can absolutely look at that.
» Yeah. We can absolutely look at that.
>> And that was the same with 13 as well.
» And that was the same with 13 as well.
Please indicate how often use the
following outdoor facilities in Nihill
County. Um, some of them again we don't
have in Niho County, but we would have
within our urban partners. So I think we
might just get a little bit more
accuracy if we include both. That's just
the feedback I got from residents that
were filling out the survey.
>> Mr. Gon,
» Mr. Gon,
>> thank you through the chair. I really
» thank you through the chair. I really
appreciate that uh level of feedback
because we can make improvements with
our communication strategy as we move
forward. Um, I want the residents out
there to know that our team is ready to
answer any questions that come forward
on this to adapt. So if there's things
that they're unclear with, uh we have
the team here that is ready to accept
those questions and we can provide that
information to all the counselors and
and online to ensure uh should there be
any uh questions or misunderstanding to
any future engagement that we can
clarify quickly so it doesn't feel
ownorous on them in any way that they
they have an ability to voice their
opinion as needed.
So, I recognize the fact that we're
doing a
uh inventory and assessment of
recreation facilities within the
geographic Neil County area. So, it's
not just Neheil County. The question
that is sort of rumbling around in the
back of my head at this point in time is
how are we determining the feedback and
where it's coming from? So, if the
purpose is for Nehill County to
determine a 10-year plan going forward,
are we assessing feedback from our
residents or are we assessing feedback
from whoever gives feedback to the
survey? So, they potentially could be
urban or rural and are is our focus on
anyone who lives within our geographic
area or is it specific to Nehill County?
>> So, we uh in the sur there. The one of
» So, we uh in the sur there. The one of
the the first two questions there
analyzes um what uh division you're in
um within the municipality and then what
uh if you're in an urban municipality,
what urban municipality you're in. Um
and so we are looking for that feedback
from the region as a whole, but we will
be able to break that out to Nehill
County versus urban so that we are able
to see um when we're looking at facility
usage um both for kneehill residents
using urbans and for urban residents
using Kneehill facilities so that we can
gather a full picture data of of the
users of those facilities.
>> Okay. So the funding is county. It's
» Okay. So the funding is county. It's
we're funding this
>> project. Okay. And you said you want to
» project. Okay. And you said you want to
do the majority of the surveys hopefully
in person.
>> Um is there a way for people to access
» Um is there a way for people to access
the survey um through a QR code or some
other way because I notice it's not very
visible in our website and so I'm just
wondering.
>> Yes. So the website page is upcoming.
» Yes. So the website page is upcoming.
We're just working on getting that
online. Um So then it'll have the link
for everybody to access. And we are
working um one of this the things that's
in the engagement that's being worked on
right now is uh the social media um
campaign um that we'll see over the next
few weeks that will link back to those
pages. So at this point in time, we're
in the very early stages of the survey.
We're just trying to get all of the
different pieces together, identify the,
you know, question issues, things like
that, uh, glitches that come up and then
we'll be able to have that online
presence and and have that uh, fully
accessible and we will absolutely share
that with council.
>> Okay. And I mean, if you want feedback
» Okay. And I mean, if you want feedback
from council, can you share the survey
with us and then we could give you
feedback on how the questions are either
directed or should be maybe more
focused?
>> Uh, absolutely. it is currently live and
» Uh, absolutely. it is currently live and
so we will keep things so that the
questions themselves are um generally
the same so that we're not trying to
change things partway through but as for
wording and and making things more clear
we can absolutely do that within it
>> okay just I don't think unless we were
» okay just I don't think unless we were
at the event in Three Hills we wouldn't
have seen the content of the survey
>> No
go ahead councelor Cunningham
>> yeah sorry I feel like I'm ahead of the
» yeah sorry I feel like I'm ahead of the
game here because I and and they did
have little bookmarks that had the QR
code. So, I don't know if you folks have
some of those available, maybe you could
give to council, but yeah.
>> Um, so, uh, one of the questions that
» Um, so, uh, one of the questions that
came to me, um, more than once, question
23, to help better meet community needs
for parks and recreation in Nihill
County, would you support an increase in
property taxes to enhance existing or
develop new recreation facilities,
programs, and services? So, it got asked
to me, does that include um, a pavilion
at Horseshoe Canyon? Am I am I
committing to an increase or approving
increase of tax? So, I think we want to
clarify that because that came to me
more than once. And then it does ask how
much would you be willing to pay because
somebody said, well, it could be
perceived as a recreational facility. It
could be perceived as a tourism. So,
that that one I think we're going to get
fast and furious. So, I would see a real
need for clarification within that one.
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> Yeah. Please. And the intent with that
» Yeah. Please. And the intent with that
question was a general um you know if
you're looking similar to how the Trochu
pool is funded through the additional um
tax to the area of the residents round
um and so in general is that something
you're in favor of or do you not want to
see additional taxes overall? Um but we
can absolutely look at the clarification
of that and give people some context to
it.
>> Yeah. And I think because of the
» Yeah. And I think because of the
conversation that's been
more prominent here at the council table
around what's happening in Horseshoe
Canyon and some of the initiatives
there, it's going to be very easy to
confuse the question as to be specific
to Horseshoe Canyon. So if we're asking
a more general question, we need to be
very clear in the intent so that people
understand
>> exactly what the intent is because the
» exactly what the intent is because the
feedback will be probably relatively
negative about recreation funding if
it's specific.
the horse you can depending on what part
of the county you're in and depending on
the individuals.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
» Yeah, absolutely.
>> Other thoughts or questions?
» Other thoughts or questions?
Uh, councelor Phobes, please.
>> So, I um we do strategic plan every four
» So, I um we do strategic plan every four
years when a new council gets on. So, I
guess this would be more for um CEO
Hogan is is will this report be in
conjunction with that with the new
council that will be going through that
um that strategic plan when anyone comes
on just confirming that for
>> Mr. Hogan if you would please
» Mr. Hogan if you would please
>> through the chair the intent is that
» through the chair the intent is that
this would be tied into council
decision- making going forward so when
they look at the next 10 years so
whether that's strategic planning uh
yearly budget identifying whether uh
what facilities council may want to go
forward with or not um and that's when I
say that I'm meaning that in context of
not just council's decision by
themselves but as a region um so as an
example um I hope I'm not overstepping
uh overpromising anything here, but you
know, we currently have three arenas,
three indoor arenas in the county. Um,
do we need three? Do we need five? Do we
need two? Right? That starts to
influence decisions that we make with uh
not just with among our own
municipality, but in in partnerships or
discussions with our neighbors as well.
Um, Deputy McGee,
>> I just wanted to go back to the uh
» I just wanted to go back to the uh
generalized question. Um,
it's a real hard line for council to
know when we're getting into the weeds
that is for you to do and uh when it is
time to speak up. I I struggle with that
sometimes and this is an example of
that. The reality is council is your
first line on of the feel of people and
how people interpret the information.
And we here have more of a
academic style of understanding the
information as to opposed a real life in
their homes style. And I think sometimes
when we do surveys we forget to adapt it
to that. So a general question is
absolutely intimidating and and
difficult for people to ask. I think
you'll find out from my experiences from
other jobs where I used to do surveys,
they tend not to be answered wholesomely
and become not valuable information in
the end after all. So I really uh would
encourage for me it would make more
important I would really appreciate
knowing would you put more money towards
more playgrounds, would you put money
towards sporting events? If you
categorize those so that people know
specifically what you're talking about,
they would be willing to answer. But
when you make it general like that,
they're going to say no or not do it
because they don't know what they're
saying yes to. They do need a very clear
language to answer that question
honestly.
>> And and so that's my feedback and uh do
» And and so that's my feedback and uh do
with it what you think is wise.
I guess the other question I had um and
again it's around the context of what
Nehil County currently is doing. Is
there information or awareness being
provided to the survey respondents
around the amount of funding Neihill
County currently is putting into
recreation
facilities and activities outside of the
actual confines of Neil County. So what
we're doing with our urban partners and
the amount of money that's already being
spent in those environments because it
does provide a context because
oftentimes
um residents don't recognize boundaries,
municipalities do. And so um it's it's
difficult sometimes for residents to um
recognize that there is a so when you
ask people where they live, not very
many people say Nhill County.
I a habit of saying that because I
happen to be a counselor and sitting as
Reeve for Nehil County. My wife says
Troer I say no dear we live in Nehill
County just to get that clarity but the
boundary for expenditures of funding for
Nehill County doesn't end at our
boundary. It crosses those boundaries
into the urbans and we are supporting
and helping recreation take place in our
urban neighbors. um that funding does
not necessarily flow back the other way.
And so I think there needs to be the
context needs to be an understanding of
what recreation means not only to
Knehill County but to our urbans and I
agree with where we're going with it but
at the same time there needs to be
clarity about how that funding happens
too. So, and so I I'm not sure that the
purpose of this whole uh engagement is
to get to that level or not, but when
we're asking people already if they're
supportive of spending more money, do
they understand how much money we
currently are spending and where that
money is being directed? And to me,
that's an important part. So, when you
come and say to me, am I supportive of
spending more money? First and foremost,
I have to know what money is being spent
and where it's being spent. And so
that's that's a big part of the clarity
I think that's required. And so when you
say to me, would you spend more money on
the recreation? I'm going to say yes
because of my awareness of what's
happening. But not everybody's going to
say that because they're not necessarily
either prepared to support more
recreation or prepared to support
um or
um facilities.
um if they don't exactly know what we're
currently doing. That's to me that's
what So when people talk to me about say
a facility like Horseshoe Canyon and the
money that Neil County spends there,
if I said to them, do you realize that
we've spent as much money in the Ronor
Memorial Arena as we've spent in
Horseshoe Canyon?
If if that was a true statement, a lot
of them would not be aware of that. But
they would know what money has been
spent in the one facility but not
necessarily to maintain the other. And
so that's there's complexity that
>> I think as deputy reed McGee was
» I think as deputy reed McGee was
implying that as counselors we
understand some of that complexity but
not necessarily the everyday man on the
street.
So that's to me that's one of the
concerns I have is in terms of that
understanding and having the base
knowledge to begin to answer the
questions.
» Um
>> you ask for feedback
» you ask for feedback
>> and we're always happy to receive it.
» and we're always happy to receive it.
Um, so with that, that kind of context
will be included in the final report.
But in regards to the survey here, um,
is that something that you would be
looking for us to add to the survey and
to these discussions? Um, because it's
currently in part of the data analysis
portion and where we're at right now. we
can put things uh into the
categorization like um had been
requested, you know, putting would you
support more funding to playgrounds or
these specific things. Um but I don't
know if we have the information together
right now to be able to get it into the
survey in a timely manner um in that
way.
>> Yeah. So maybe just following up on that
» Yeah. So maybe just following up on that
as well. one um exactly as Fall has
mentioned in terms of categorizing where
the money is or where people would be
willing to spend money. I think
absolutely we can make that adjustment.
we should also be able to just um key in
the previous responses like accordingly
and just make like so it wouldn't have
an effect on anybody who's um already
done the survey um in terms of what's
being um discussed um uh for ensuring
that people understand the context and
everything exactly as founders mentioned
it's going to be in the final report but
I'm also seeing perhaps an opportunity
that in those other engagements that
we're going to be doing things like
focus groups the openhouse specified
interviews uh group engagement so on and
so forth we can ensure that that context
is presented prior to us starting the
engagement. We usually do that anyway in
things like group engagement where we
give an overview of the project and some
context that already exists. So we can
just do that as part of that is that you
know before we ask the question about
are you willing to spend more money
which exactly as you know fully
appreciated here and as is being
mentioned by council is a very very
tough question to ask because it's it's
you know it's your money like um are you
really willing to spend it? we can
ensure that when we're doing engagement
that we are informing people of exactly
the context that um has been discussed
so that they are aware of exactly what
is already being spent and where it is
being spent before they fully answer
that question. So I think um in the
survey um it it it might get to a level
of detail which could detract from the
completion of the survey is my only
concern there. But in terms of providing
information in these other engagements
100% and in the final report as well we
will ensure that it is there.
>> Mr. Mr. Hogan, you wanted to comment
» Mr. Mr. Hogan, you wanted to comment
>> um through through the chair just to
» um through through the chair just to
echo some of the concerns that have just
been brought up around the getting too
granular with the survey and what
because there are some things that we
don't
>> even asking a question like do you
» even asking a question like do you
support spending more money on
playgrounds without being able to
demonstrate what a playground actually
costs? Um you can spend a quarter
million and not get much of a playground
>> uh with that. So and I again it's what
» uh with that. So and I again it's what
is the public awareness around some of
those things. So, some of those
questions I think um are around is there
a general vibe, right? Is as a member of
the public, do you feel that you're
spending enough on that's the wrong way
to phrase it, are you comfortable with
where you're with what you feel the
county is spending on recreation versus
versus not? Um because when we get into
the development of some of these sites,
whether it's a ball diamond, a
playground, um the costs on some of
these things, like it's, you know,
you're not talking tens of thousands to
develop a playground or sorry, a ball
diamond. You're actually talking
hundreds of thousands to develop a ball
diamond. And so there are as you get
into some of those things, we can't
provide all of that detail to
necessarily inform that decision. And so
there is a broad sentiment that I think
the survey looks for and not wanting to
risk getting too granular with some of
the some of the items, right? Or as they
as they go through in terms of when
people are first filling it out,
» Mr. Ganon.
>> Thank uh thank you through the chair. I
» Thank uh thank you through the chair. I
just want to add that the purpose of
this report is to provide findings to
create opportunity or understanding.
It's not to propose a project at this
point or to say we're going to build
this because a proponent says they're
willing to spend money on it at this
time. It's a planning tool for us to
advise that we've looked at the
community's needs, what they're using,
uh what they would like that we
currently don't have and potentially
create a master plan to understand where
we going to go from here, where our
investment strategies are for that and
really obtain further knowledge to that
direction and understanding from
council. So, this is a tool and the
stats can be used in multiple ways. uh
including understanding who's using our
facilities, what facilities are we using
when we look at agreements. It's going
to really pull more and more information
and data sets to be used in economic
development in our planning aspects in
our future parks and wreck
opportunities. So, this really gives us
a roadmap to what potentially is that
next step and look at investment
strategies or opportunities and make
sure that we're on the same page with
council. So, when we put a level of
effort out there, we're putting it
strategically and not just doing a
little bit here, a little bit there, a
little bit here, and all of a sudden the
plan does not coincide with uh a future
direction or opportunity. So, um I just
want to understand some of these terms
are real general in nature. Um they're
intended to be general in nature and and
unfortunately the IP2 standard really
talks about um there will be people that
won't like questions. There will be
people that will struggle with answering
some of the questions. Um but it it's
made to look at stats a generalist point
of view at this point versus really get
into that granular aspect of um nuts and
bolts of budgeting.
Okay.
Any other questions from council or
comments?
All right. Well, then what I'm going to
say is thank you for being here today
and bringing your presentation. It's
very much appreciated.
Um, I guess I'll look forward to seeing
what happens in terms of the public
engagements and the information that we
look forward to having come back. So,
thank you. Um,
yeah.
>> Awesome. Thank you.
» Awesome. Thank you.
>> Perfect. Likewise, thank you uh so much
» Perfect. Likewise, thank you uh so much
to council for having us and allowing us
to present. And of course, if anything,
well, we'll be back to, you know, share
more findings and more information. And
if any questions come up in the interim
on anything, please uh you know, through
Fallon, you can just let us know. We are
always uh our emails and our phones are
always open, so we're more than happy to
answer anything that might come up.
Thank you again for having us.
>> Yes. Thanks for being here today.
» Do you have bookmarks is Debbie's
question.
We'll be here for a while.
» Yeah, we will.
» Okay, thanks again very much. Appreciate
you bringing us the update. Thank you.
All
right.
Listening.
Okay. Um so moving on in our agenda then
we will be at
uh 7.1 I believe it is
just make sure I'm correct
7.1 which is policy 3-1 council
compensation and expense reimbursement.
So welcome Miss Khaled.
>> Welcome back. Thank you so much. And I
» Welcome back. Thank you so much. And I
think we have a few minutes left to
still say good morning council.
Almost there, huh? So, I'm here today to
present the draft policy 3-1, the
council compensation and expense
reimbursement. So on August 26th, 2025,
council directed administration to
update specific compensation amounts
within that policy following a
presentation to council of a
compensation analysis. This analysis
compared Nihill County's current
compensation structure and amounts with
that of nine other municipalities.
The same comparator municipalities used
in the staff compensation review were
referenced to maintain alignment in the
benchmarking process.
This direction stemmed from previous
discussions around the current review of
council compensation which is required
ahead of the 2025 to 2029 council term.
Rather than establishing an external
council compensation committee, council
opted to conduct the review internally
to ensure consistency with the approach
used in the previous review cycle.
Council also identified key components
of the policy for administration to
review. Specifically, that would be the
monthly salary, meeting per DM amounts,
meal allowances, mileage, communication
allowances, and divisional meeting
allowances.
Administration is presenting the revised
proposed policy 3-1 for council's
discussion and consideration.
Much of the policy's components have
remained the same. If council wishes, I
can go over all the components of the
policy or we can focus on the aspects
that have changed. So, I'm looking to
see how council would want to proceed
with that.
» Do you want to walk through the policy
or you want to deal with the changes?
>> Sounds like um the desire is to deal
» Sounds like um the desire is to deal
with the things that are changing. So,
if you don't mind, please.
» Okay. With the changes that we'll be
focusing on, before we get into the
numbers, I did want to note a proposed
change for wording. This would be on
page 84 of the package. Um, number 18 to
it's um the REV allowance for attending
ad hoc meetings.
The last part of that sentence states
the reev is authorized to attend and
receive a perdm for his attendance.
Administration is proposing to change
that wording to his slash her
attendance.
So we can take that into consideration
as we're moving forward.
As for the aspects that have changed,
the monthly salary was discussed to be
changed for the reev from 3,122
to 3,450.
The deputy reef amount would change from
2,667
to 3,000 and the counselor amount would
change from 2,334
to 2,700.
The current salary amounts are the
current the corrected amounts that were
presented in the August 26th, 2025
council meeting. As mentioned in the
policy, the monthly rate will be revised
every year as needed based on market
adjustments.
Another aspect that was also changed was
the meeting per DMs in terms of the
administration corrected amounts. So the
current policy now shows that it's 180
for half day and for full day 361 which
is now going to be reflected in the
proposed policy. And similar to the
previous aspect, the current policy per
DM amounts will also be revised every
year as needed based on the market
adjustments.
And the last aspect that would be
changed is the meal allowance. This
would be to be in line with policy 3-3
council appointees reimbursement. So
breakfast will change from $15 to $20.
Lunch will be the same $15 to $20 and
dinner will change from 25 to 30. So the
total amount that will be changed will
be 55 per day to $70 per day.
the meal compensation model which would
be the receipt based or the established
meal allowance amount will remain
unchanged
and with that I will conclude the
presentation. Thank you
and thank you escalid. Um questions from
council, comment, uh discussion,
very quiet group.
» Uh Deputy Reed McGee,
>> I am feeling uncomfortable with the uh
» I am feeling uncomfortable with the uh
rate of increase to our monthly salary.
Um it's just for feedback. I know we've
gone around the table lots with it and
this is where we landed, but I just feel
that's still a bit on the high side. Um
I'd rather see that our increases are um
like I'm thinking like 255 for the
counselor.
Uh, Deputy A, do you want to be more
clear in terms of the numbers that
you're considering or suggesting?
>> So, yeah, for I sorry, I just worked out
» So, yeah, for I sorry, I just worked out
the number for for counselor amount
would be um 2500
and then um accordingly I didn't work
out from there. I'm sorry, but
so if you do the math, it would be 2500,
2,800, and 3250.
just make a comment.
>> Go ahead, councelor Peter, please.
» Go ahead, councelor Peter, please.
>> Um, so I'm going to disagree with Deputy
» Um, so I'm going to disagree with Deputy
Ree McGee. Um, and the reason is I know
I am stepping down, but I want to make
sure that everybody has the opportunity
to sit in this chair because it does
take a lot of your time and so um, you
got to be able to
encourage or get those people that are
teetering on whether to to become a
counselor or not because of today's cost
of living. Um so I I I like what I see
in front of you and I thank you for
presenting um over the last numerous
meetings to us. Um but that's just my
feeling.
>> Thank you councelor Penner. Councelor
» Thank you councelor Penner. Councelor
Witstock.
» As far as the renumeration goes, I I
think the reason that we've we've gone
up as much as we have is because we were
never taxed prior to the federal
government taking on that uh taxation
part for municipal counselors pay. So
what we used to get previously
is probably more than what we're getting
now when you consider it's going to be
taxed.
And
is that a reason to increase? And we're
looking at not our wages, we're looking
at the next council's wages.
I mean, if they're going to come in,
they're going to get taxed on their uh
monthly salaries.
I mean, it's great to look at these
numbers and say, "Well, that's too
much." But it's when you get your check,
you're going to say, "Well, where is
what? Where's the numbers that I was
told?" Good
>> point.
» point.
>> So,
» So,
I mean, if it wasn't the taxation part,
I if the feds hadn't changed the
taxation part, I think we'd have been
all right. But they did change it.
>> They did.
» They did.
>> So, that's that's my comment to this.
» So, that's that's my comment to this.
And as far as a predium goes, I know
you're not going to get rich sitting
here, but
you do spend a lot of time sitting here.
» Thank you for that, Council Wistock.
Councelor Christie, please.
>> I guess my comments similar to FaZe
» I guess my comments similar to FaZe
where I thought it was high and then I
remembered that this is spread over four
years. So then all of a sudden it
doesn't look so high. So that's the part
that I looked at. So I'm comfortable
with where we're at.
>> Okay. Any other comments, discussion?
» Okay. Any other comments, discussion?
Councelor Cunningham, please.
>> Sorry. And I know we talked about this
» Sorry. And I know we talked about this
last time, but if you guys could just
remind me um I know um the um councelor
that sat in my chair last time was um
pretty advocated for lower wages for
council and and I believe it's another
council member that actually brought it
forward. So
the previous council took a wage
reduction. Can you just remind me at
that time how much of a wage reduction
that council took because that I mean
that's quite
unheard of right in in business or in
any other industry taking a reduction
does not happen that often. So I'm just
curious like are we does do these
current um rates reflect close to what
what the previous council was making
before it was reduced?
>> Does anybody know?
» Does anybody know?
and we discussed it and sorry I just I
can't I don't have it with me either. So
yeah,
>> Deputy Eve McGee
» Deputy Eve McGee
>> I don't have an answer for how much of a
» I don't have an answer for how much of a
rejection we took. It was significant. I
do remember that and I remember um that
the reason why we came to these numbers
is we did compare it to our 50
percentile thing and decided to use that
as the benchmark as opposed to history,
right? because that's what we decided is
the benchmark um before. So I think when
we look at that number um my suggestion
is too low but
that's uh I think that's where we came
with this number is from that criteria
instead.
>> Mr. Hogan. Yes, please.
» Mr. Hogan. Yes, please.
>> Uh through Mr. Eve, if that's
» Uh through Mr. Eve, if that's
information that that council wants, um
we can we'll go back and find the
motion. That won't take us very long.
Um, but if you if you feel that's
valuable, which think I I'm hearing that
it is, um, we can we can look that up
quickly.
>> So, I know the rationale for why we made
» So, I know the rationale for why we made
the change we did because I put that
rationale forward and at the time we
were asking our staff to u not take a
cost of living increase. Um and so we
felt as council that it uh behooved us
to set the example and it was really
unfair of us to move forward or increase
salary when we're asking our own people
not to and so um
we made the choice to take that
reduction to set the example for the
organization as a whole and I think
that's a very appropriate action on our
behalf
and to be honest I don't remember the
exact percentage reduction that we took
but it was to give
to demonstrate the council is
responsible to provide leadership
and the numbers that we're talking here
as you pointed out deputy e McGee are
below the 50% which is the target for
our own uh individuals our own people.
So we're still maybe in some ways
leading by example.
Okay. The only other comment perhaps I
want to make is I did have some
conversation around um
what might be considered appropriate or
whe whether a counselor is worth what
they're being paid or not. And um what I
would say is I really feel that
the group of individuals that sit at
this table do provide a service to our
community and um
yes we are compensated for that but I
don't believe we're overcompensated and
the time and the commitment that's put
forward by this group is is is
appreciated certainly by me sitting in
the chair that I am. When I look around
the room and look at the people who are
serving with me, I very much appreciate
the efforts that you're making and I
think that the majority of the residents
who live in Neil County do the same. And
so
we want to attract uh people who want to
be here and not because of the money,
but we don't want the money to be an
impediment to their being at this table.
And so
I really feel fair compensation for the
time spent is is reasonable.
Whether that's me sitting here or that's
somebody else sitting here that's
regardless the point is that whoever
sits here should be fairly compensated.
councor popes
>> and I'll just bring that to one of the
» and I'll just bring that to one of the
things like I sit on the hill housing
and that board goes through changes and
those changes um the previous boards
that may have sat there are not dealing
with what this current board is doing
and so the amount of work and time not
just myself but the whole entire board
has put in to making that organization
successful has cost an awful lot of my
family time because I'm doing it outside
of the scope of my normal dayto-day
counc.
» So I guess my question is do we just
want to table it till after lunch? Do
you get that information or is council
prepared to make a motion? You want to
table it? Is that what you want?
>> Did lunch arrive?
» Did lunch arrive?
>> I think so.
» I think so.
>> Okay. Well, we could recess for lunch
» Okay. Well, we could recess for lunch
and
>> and then rather than table it, we could
» and then rather than table it, we could
just recess for lunch and then come back
to it uh
after lunch.
That would be appropriate, Mr. Hogan.
>> Through the chair, I think that would be
» Through the chair, I think that would be
that would be recommended.
>> Okay. All right. So, um, since lunch has
» Okay. All right. So, um, since lunch has
arrived, I'm going to say we're in
recess. Um,
we do have a delegation at 1. So, what
do we need? 45 minutes.
Okay. So,
Okay, it is uh 12:58 and I know it's
ahead of when I said we would start, but
our honored guest is here and so we
don't want to delay you any longer than
we have to. So, I'll call our meeting
back to order. And the next item on our
agenda is of course to visit with our
MLA,
Tara Sawyer. Welcome, Tara. And uh we're
glad you're able to join us here today.
And just so you know, we are streaming
live. And when you're speaking, if you
would please use the microphone. And I
don't know if you know everybody. So
perhaps what we'll do is we'll introduce
um I know you know a few of us but that
way you have a better idea who you're
talking to and there's a few hangers on
in the room too that maybe you don't
know as well. So so uh I'm sure you know
Laura Lee but Laura Lee if you would
please counselor Cunningham.
>> So Lori Michelle Cunningham. So I'm
» So Lori Michelle Cunningham. So I'm
division five. So I'm an area to the
east west north and south of Three
Hills. Thank you for coming. Really
appreciate it. Afternoon, Tara. I think
you know who I am.
>> I've never seen you in my life, Jerry.
» I've never seen you in my life, Jerry.
>> Thanks for coming in, Tara. You know who
» Thanks for coming in, Tara. You know who
I am.
>> So, Tara, I'm Ken. Of course, you know
» So, Tara, I'm Ken. Of course, you know
that. And was that wishful thinking
about Jerry having never seen him?
>> Anyway, welcome here. Thank you.
» Anyway, welcome here. Thank you.
>> Great to see you again, Tara. And uh I'm
» Great to see you again, Tara. And uh I'm
division one, so we wrap down to the
drum area. close to Horseshoe Canyon
into the Rosebud Creek or River I should
say. Rosebud River.
>> Hello Carrie Phobes, division 4. So
» Hello Carrie Phobes, division 4. So
southwest corner of this county.
>> Wade Christie from division 6 north. I
» Wade Christie from division 6 north. I
grow barley. Do you know that stuff?
>> I appreciate very much what you did
» I appreciate very much what you did
there. So thank you.
» Afternoon. Mike Hogan, chief
administrative officer.
Good afternoon, Tara. Carolyn Vanderl,
legislative services manager.
>> Good afternoon, Kevin Ganon, director of
» Good afternoon, Kevin Ganon, director of
community services.
>> Hi, I'm Mike Sir, director of
» Hi, I'm Mike Sir, director of
infrastructure.
>> Trice Cochran, director of corporate
» Trice Cochran, director of corporate
services.
>> Well, good afternoon everyone and thank
» Well, good afternoon everyone and thank
you very much for having me. Yes, I know
some of you and uh I am looking forward
to getting to know the rest of you a
little bit better. So, I appreciate you
giving me a little bit of your time. uh
obviously new so just trying to get to
all the counties in my uh writing and
and get that first touch point as I've
been saying I even though there is a
municipal election I still think it's
important I wasn't waiting until after
that the people
this thing I'm used to having to keep my
finger on it for the Alberta next panel
so I kept my finger on it then I
realized I was turning myself off
apologies
Um yeah, you know, it's really important
to hear from you guys. Uh
this first this first touch point is
really just a matter of, you know,
whether we get into I'm not expecting to
get into anything anything super deep,
but just to connect with you and hear a
little bit about what's going on. Not
that I don't know this county
considering it is the county I farm in,
but uh it's at a different level when
you're you're speaking to to you guys.
So, I know not all of it will be right
now, but uh yeah, I I appreciate the
time that you're all giving me and the
people here. So, thanks.
>> Well, and I guess uh from our point of
» Well, and I guess uh from our point of
view, we're very appreciative of the
fact that you wanted to come and meet
with us and to engage um and to get to
know us a little better as well as some
of the issues that are here um and
important to us. So, that's appreciated
very much. Thank you.
So, I don't know how we want to jump in
um or where we want to start, but I
think um you probably have heard in
other counties um in this area similar
things around issues that are of concern
to them. And certainly um I think we
wanted to make sure that we emphasize
the point around some of the discussion
and decision making that's going on
around oil and gas particularly
um the assessment model review and
mature asset strategy and how those
impact us specifically as a rural
municipality.
um and the importance of
those industries to us from a revenue
point of view. And
um I guess our point of view is that
um issues that are existing in the oil
and gas industry are not necessarily
solved through
artificial adjustments in either
taxation or assessment. and that there
has to be some long-term solutions. And
so for us to be able to participate in
the way that we're requested by the
province to work with our immediate
neighbors on things like ICFs and those
kind of things where there's funding
agreements that cross our boundaries,
the revenues that are generated through
our partnerships with those industries
are very very important to us. And so,
um, I guess I'm sure you've heard it.
Um, so we very much would appreciate it
being represented,
um, and understood from the point of
view of where we live every day. And
since you live in Neil County,
the direct impacts on you from a
taxation point of view um
will be felt as those revenues are
reduced through whatever initiatives the
province takes. And so I think that's
that's where we might want to just start
with. And uh I think I was asked by
several of my counselors to you know
make sure that we got that one on the
table first but I know there are some
other
little issues that perhaps somebody else
would like to annunciate whether it's
you deputy reev or but we we have things
that are important to us and I know the
province has things that's very
important to them and um as they reduce
the amount of funds that they transfer
to us or as they increase the ask for us
on things like policing and other
initiatives like that. Those revenues
have to come from somewhere.
And so a balanced approach is kind of
what we're requesting and asking for and
then a consultive approach where we feel
that our voices are more
more well heard um and perhaps respected
more at that table than we currently
feel.
So I know you're all brand new to all of
this.
>> Just a little
» Just a little
Sorry, I am taking notes. I'm not
texting people. I realize I my rush to
get in in here on time. I left my
notebook in my my in my car, so I'm
taking my notes on my phone.
>> Okay.
» Okay.
>> So, um I don't know. Um
» So, um I don't know. Um
I guess I don't want to be the only one
speaking to you. So, I think it's
important that you get a feel for our
whole council, not just me trying to
represent their voices. Um, the only
the only other one that maybe I'll put
on the table before I turn it loose to
everybody else is just the whole and you
and I have had this conversation
previously um where we chatted a little
bit about the Badlands Motorsports
Initiative and um our application on the
STIP grant side of things for funding
there. And
my encouragement to you at the time was
to be supportive of our application if
and when it came through. So, um I guess
I'll put that out there. Badlands might
be not that popular everywhere, but
certainly from a kneehill county point
of view in revenue and economic
development, which the province seems to
feel is really important, um we feel the
same way. And so when we look at the
area of Drumheller and Horseshoe Canyon
and are thinking about what we might do
as far as tourism and economic
development in that area, Badlands
Motors is not necessarily key to what
might happen there, but it is a big
piece of what might happen. And so just
an encouragement to
think about the people here at home and
how that might impact us going forward.
And I know there's it's not the most
popular development everywhere
um within your writing, but it's
certainly very important at this table
and for this municipality. So
>> yeah, I might have heard a little bit
» yeah, I might have heard a little bit
about that one.
>> A lot.
» A lot.
>> Well, if you ever if you've ever been
» Well, if you ever if you've ever been
near Rosebud, I'm sure you've heard
about it, but
>> Yeah. No, I've Yeah, I've I've been down
» Yeah. No, I've Yeah, I've I've been down
there.
>> Yeah. couple times. So,
like I said, it is we're we're early
days, so it's just nice to hear
a few of the high points, and we'll
delve into them deeper.
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> Later, but yeah, I appreciate that.
» Later, but yeah, I appreciate that.
>> So,
» So,
>> you're definitely not the first to talk
» you're definitely not the first to talk
about funding, obviously. Yeah, I mean
>> I do want to give you opportunity to
» I do want to give you opportunity to
talk to us about your own goals, but I
wanted to give council here a chance to
kind of just give you some of the
highlights from our point of view. And
then I really would like to hear kind of
your thoughts in terms of how you want
to represent the writing as a whole and
what your goals for yourself as as our
new MLA might be.
But um I know Deputy Re McGee you want
to
so I'll give you the floor.
>> Thank you. Um there are so many things
» Thank you. Um there are so many things
I'd love to share with you, but of
course I'll have to pick a priority or
you'll have to be here all day.
But uh for what's really close to my
heart is the FCSS program in our area. I
uh I really uh think it'd be worth your
while to have a visit before our
director retires at the end of the
September.
>> End of September.
» End of September.
>> End of September. Um
» End of September. Um
the wealth of knowledge and experience
that Shelley Jackson has is immense as
far as the provincial criter.
She's seen how FCS has grown over the
years and the unique way that she has
managed that component in our area is
quite unique and very very successful. I
feel very passionate about that because
I I really struggle when um our
government is very strong about wanting
to increase our economic future and we
are seeing more and more money being
spent on
uh crisis problems with our humanity.
Whether it be drug use, homelessness,
um the way our hospitals are overused,
those types of things, those are all
results of foundational things not being
cared for. And I think we'd save a pile
of money if we remembered these great
assets we have right in our communities
such as the FCSS program and what
they've done. So for example um they
have a great report. They have said that
they um survey through their surveys
they found 4,280
people have benefited from the programs
they provided in our office alone. When
you think that our population base is
just over 10,000, that's a remarkable
stat with very little money put into it.
And I think the outcome of the long term
of that is really worth researching and
being well educated on. I think that's
the way going forward to see that we
have kids ready to go into the trades
who want to live here. um and to reduce
the cost we're paying on these huge
crisises because I don't think it's a
coincidence that when the province has
limited the amount of money to
education, social programming, those
types of things for our children and
youth that these crisises in incremental
time directly from that has increased
and increased. That's not a coincidence
in my value system. I think that's
directly correlated and um I just
encourage you to to be educated on how
we can keep that community component
because they're about community being
the people who make our people great and
uh that's that's my priority today.
» I think you can tell she has some
investment there
and so I
>> I like the passion. Yeah, I appreciate
» I like the passion. Yeah, I appreciate
that. Yeah. Um,
anyone else? I know. Um, go ahead,
Councelor Witto.
It's all right if I call you Tara.
>> I think it's okay. It's
» I think it's okay. It's
>> okay. Okay, Tara. I've been here a
» okay. Okay, Tara. I've been here a
while. I've seen the booms that we've
had in this county and in this province.
And I'm not saying we're in a bust
situation,
but we are headed downhill big time
because of downloading from the
provincial side.
I mean, it started
started a while ago.
I know I was at a meeting on the 19th of
or 2nd of July, 2019
when we met with 15 other shallow gas
well municipal
uh municipalities.
And that day we lost 1.8 8 or$ 1.9
million
because of the change in the assessment
on shallow gas wells. Like I'm not
saying that it was wrong, but to do it
in one day without a heads up that I see
that as being complete downloading.
There's been a number of things um like
the policing that have been downloaded
upon us. And whether that's right or
wrong, I I'm not here to argue whether
it's right or wrong. Uh, but from what I
gather,
one of the issues there was is more
boots on the ground. And the last time
we had the RCMP in here, because we have
five different jurisdictions of RCMP
that that actually provides service to
Nehill County. Not one of them got an
extra boot on the ground, but we got to
pay $489,000
for this for policing.
So, that's another thing that I see is
downloading. And now we've got the
assessment model review. I think that's
supposed to close up on the in 28. Am I
correct on that, Mike? Someplace in
there.
And we've got the mature assets strategy
coming forward.
Uh MSI turned into LGFF
which was also
a bit of a download or not a download a
short shortage of funding. I mean, I
know everybody needs money and I know
everybody's clamoring for money, but
when you keep losing funding, someplace
along the line, you have to figure out a
way to
increase your revenue. What we've done
over the last few years is yes, we've
increased the farmland tax, we've
increased the residential tax, but when
we look at the kind of money that we
lose every time there's some sort of a
adjustment at the provincial level, it
takes a lot of extra money from our
residents to make up the difference.
Like I believe
we basically collect
17 17 million from linear
16 or 17
but we collect 2 million from farmland
tax and 2 million from residential tax
within the county. So yeah, it is out of
out of out of balance, but if we lose 2
million on the linear side,
that doubles the taxes on residential or
farmland to make up the difference.
And so we have to come up with different
ways of trying to either not get stung
that way or to get revenue from some
other way.
So It's really difficult to sit in this
seat and raise taxes on farmland and
residential for a person like you that
lives in actually my division in the
county.
And I think you've probably seen what's
been going on with the taxes there. I
don't think they're exorbitant because
we do provide services and you know it's
going to get to the point where services
are going to have to be cut or there's
going to have to be something else done.
And I don't know.
I don't know. It it it's just making it
more and more difficult every time
there's a change at the provincial. And
I'm not blaming you or the provincial
government that's there right now. I'm
just saying like from it. The trend has
been happening for a long time and it
doesn't seem to be changing.
So
I think anytime we can get some revenue
from industry or
it's hard to get revenue from tourism if
you don't actually sell anything but on
the indust or on the residential side it
would be nice to have something or
industrial side something that we can
actually
make up some of the revenue losses that
we've had. I and I'm sorry I don't want
to sit here and complain. Well, I guess
I am sitting here and complaining,
but when we're doing the ICFs, which is,
you know, yes, we the recreation,
there's a lot of recreation that goes on
in the towns and villages, we support
that because our residents do use that.
Whether it be the swimming pool, curling
rink, whatever, skating rinks, our
residents do use it and we try to
support it through the ICF negotiations.
But as we lose revenue on our side,
we're not going to have
revenue to share with the towns and
villages within our municipality to help
support their recreation stuff. And we
do a lot on fire. We do a lot on uh
different things like we we we partner
on a lot of stuff just because it's got
to be efficient.
But the efficiency also comes with a
cost and if you're losing funds it makes
it more difficult not just for the
county but for the towns and villages
that are within the county and I know
you probably understand all this stuff
and there is a different perspective at
the provincial level than there is at
the municipal level but I'm not saying
we're dying but we keep going this way
it's not going to be pretty
so
I guess that's my two bits
No passion there either.
>> Uh yeah. No. Um I appreciate
» Uh yeah. No. Um I appreciate
I Well, yeah, I know what you're saying
there. So
>> it it it is it is um I I the one thing I
» it it it is it is um I I the one thing I
will say with respect to to the policing
and it's a little off off but
it does directly tie into one of the
questions the Alberta X panel is having
right and I think that's one of the main
things conversation pieces around that
that has started being put out is
understanding what we're paying for or
CMP, but we're not getting the full
roster across the province. That's why
that's one of those discussions, just as
a side piece, right? Or where that
funding could be going if we went to a
different model if we if we did.
>> Well, don't get me wrong. I'm not
» Well, don't get me wrong. I'm not
complaining about the policing. I think
the police are doing a fantastic job
with the resources they have.
>> The problem is they don't have enough
» The problem is they don't have enough
resources. We're very well aware of
that.
That's a problem.
>> Yeah. But they are doing well with what
» Yeah. But they are doing well with what
they've got. And to be quite honest,
when they've put together some of these
uh whatever you want to call them where
they actually talked to one another.
That worked out fantastic because a
detachment knew who the who the problem
was, but that problem traveled around
the whole county. Soon as they shared
that information,
>> it worked. So collaboration, I guess,
» it worked. So collaboration, I guess,
between the RCMPs did make a heck of a
difference. But as far as the response
time to your house probably hasn't
changed after the 489,000
it's it's non-existent. They won't come
out. They just say there's by the time
they get there's no point and that's a
problem and it's not a reflection of the
officers. It's never a reflection of the
officers anyways. Yeah.
>> Sorry for
» Sorry for
>> No, I mean don't apologize. the point
» No, I mean don't apologize. the point
point of me being here is is to have a
frank conversation of of what you're
seeing and you know obviously I'm not
having you're not getting any answers
for me today and you're well aware of
that but it's it's it's that awareness
piece first. It's the first of many
conversations right?
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> Um so yeah
» Um so yeah
>> go ahead councelor Cunningham please.
» go ahead councelor Cunningham please.
They're always nervous when they get me
talking provincial or federal politics
or issues.
>> I'm saying provincial too.
» I'm saying provincial too.
>> Well, no, for sure. But but in saying
» Well, no, for sure. But but in saying
that, I want to just acknowledge that I
understand the downloading from the
province to the municipalities, you
folks as a province are also facing
downloading from the federal government.
So there's, you know, there's an effect
across the board. So even though we are
talking provincial, federal is always
going to enter into it as well. But
anyhow, um, couple quick things. Um it
was really awesome this summer that
yourself and Minister Williams who's the
Minister of Municipal Affairs um stopped
in to have a visit with us. Um one thing
that I what I'm hearing from some
colleagues across the province is Bill
50 which received relent in May of of
this year uh which is changing a lot of
the way that municipalities do their
business and especially code of conduct.
Like my understanding is our code of
conduct that's currently on the wall is
actually redundant now. So, um, little
bit of, um, interest from me as to where
the province is going to go with that.
We're kind of sitting in a little bit of
never neverland, it appears. Um, I did
hear that there was maybe going to be an
integrity minister that would be hired
to kind of deal with some of those code
of conduct issues, but it kind of feels
like the code of conduct's been taken
away and we're there hasn't been
anything been replaced yet to my
understanding. So, I really hope and I
think we mentioned it to Minister
Williams that day is um all of us with
rural municipalities will be in Edmonton
November. Those of us that are sitting
around the table, I really hope there's
some clarity around that. Um we are
currently working on a governance model
at Nihill County and I have a little bit
of frustration with it because it's hard
to tailor that if the province is going
to come and change some of the ways we
do our business. So, so yeah, just
really hoping that that sooner rather
than later there's some clarity around
that bill that was passed in May. Um,
we've had some really great
conversations. I think Minister Nudorf
um hides when I get up at RMA. Um, but
we do we've had some excellent
conversations about the AU and municipal
involvement within the AU. I think we've
made huge inroads in the past four years
and um I really do appreciate the work
that he's done. not to speak for the
rest of council, but what we were really
looking forward, what we're really
looking for was to have a seat at that
table um and be have our concerns around
municipalities listened to. And I kind
of liken it to my husband, not just
listen, but hear what I'm saying. So,
we're hoping um and I know I I've pulled
up two letters that we've received from
from Minister Nudorf in the last two
years. when he spoke at RMA he said
there was um directives that they have
given the AU but unfortunately the AUC
is at that time could have changed was
not following through. So I believe
there was a legislative piece that was
going to come forward and I'm not really
sure where that's sitting. So I would
really love an update from from Minister
Nudorf and his ministry as to where
that's all sitting. So that's an
economic withholding. We talked about it
this morning and um yeah, it's still an
issue. I think that I see Minister
Nudorf put out some little press
releases every once in a while. So, lots
of work to be done there, but we just
really like some clarity on where where
that all sits. I know the AU was
changing rule 007 and just would like to
know where a lot of that stands. So, and
one more quickly for me. Um, we're doing
a lot of conversations about a potential
building um pavilion site at Horseshoe
Canyon. And I would really love the
province to um to come out. I'd like to
extend an invitation and have the
province come out and tour. We are being
told there's there's a lot of interest
in tourism in the province of Alberta.
So, um would love the province to come
out and have a have a tour of of
Horseshoe Canyon and and the area and uh
any money that they would like to give
to Nihill County for development there
would be welcomed. That's it for me.
That was quick, right?
» Sure. Council Per,
it's fine. It's all good. Mine's just
going to be short. Um and as you're well
aware, Terra, we're we are a rural
municipality. So any framework, formulas
or whatever that are out there for
funding to all kinds of things, what
works in the city, what works along the
number two, west of the number two does
not work out here in the east. And you
are going to be our front line as to say
or our voice in Edmonton. Um to really
drive that home like what works like I
said to the west of us and in the cities
does not work out here for the most
part. Sure.
Councelor Christie,
>> I appreciate all everything everybody
» I appreciate all everything everybody
said about Horseshoe Canyon and Badland
Motorsports partly with Drumheller.
Instead of an attraction, we need need
to make it a destination to help move
tourism out of the foot foothills and
mountains out to rural Alberta. The
other thing that I'm watching very
closely with community futures is with
um the Havlin going into Strathmore.
They keep telling us about up to 200
spin-off industries. We need to figure
out how to be part of that as as a
county.
>> So, what we need your ear to the ground
» So, what we need your ear to the ground
to give us some guidance to what we can
do to move some of that north
and I appreciate we're not Highway 2.
Sometimes that's a good thing.
» Sure. Councelor post.
>> Excellent. All really great points
» Excellent. All really great points
everyone. Uh, what role do you see
municipal government shaping provincial
policies with issues like land use,
recreation, economic dis
diversification?
» You're going to have to speak clear
because you kind of said it fast and
quiet and mumbly. Sorry. So,
>> that's all good. What role do you see
» that's all good. What role do you see
municipal government shaping provincial
policies with issues like land use,
recreation, and economic
diversification?
Well,
>> those were my questions from people
» those were my questions from people
because they knew she was coming.
>> Yeah,
» I don't expect an answer, but just the
thought that this is what's been Sorry.
Just a thought that this is what's been
portrayed to me by the people that knew
you were coming today that I represent.
Yeah, I think it would be better to have
that convers conversation with them with
a better context or where they're coming
from that when you talk about land use
and what their actual specific concern
is to give a proper answer to be frank.
>> Uh, sure. And one of the concerns would
» Uh, sure. And one of the concerns would
be around the AU and how the downloading
happens and we don't have a choice
because it's considered public interest.
>> Right.
» Right.
And and some of that, you know, some of
that is just going to be better
answered. Um, I'm not going to be able
to answer it for you today.
>> That's fine. And uh some of that also
» That's fine. And uh some of that also
relates to the minister who it applies
to more, right? And they're looking for
my stance. But again, those kind of that
level of of of question is is more of to
have with them to get a better context
and I can give a better answer that's
not going to get it here today at a
council meeting because that's not
really uh that that's not really the
point of today's is today was more of me
wanting to talk to to the counselors
with what's going on in the county, not
so much um
that. Yeah.
>> Perfect. Thank you. Yeah. So
» Perfect. Thank you. Yeah. So
>> I guess you know Tara and I I totally
» I guess you know Tara and I I totally
get where you're coming from and what
you're hearing is is there are issues
from our point of view around land use
management and municipal input on the
decisions that are being made at a much
higher level than what we have
>> and concerns around um things that are
» and concerns around um things that are
happening at a AU and beyond. Um,
>> and and I will say if I could just
» and and I will say if I could just
interject, although I know what some of
these are, I need everyone to stop using
acronyms all the time because um
>> I'm still learning. So you're all and so
» I'm still learning. So you're all and so
you might use it all the time. The
acronyms I'm used to are in the egg
field. So you guys are throwing this out
and I'm just I should have said that at
the start. I mean, I actually know what
some of them are, but you but you're
only talking in acronyms because that's
what you're used to doing. It just it's
uh it it's always best practice start
with saying the full title before you
use the acronym. Then we all know
because there are gazillion acronyms out
there as well.
>> Okay.
» Okay.
>> And so I know when we're using which
» And so I know when we're using which
ones we're using best
>> stand corrected. Thank you.
» stand corrected. Thank you.
>> Just as a
» Just as a
>> So when I say ABC, does that mean
» So when I say ABC, does that mean
Alberta Barley Commission or is that
what my granddaughter's learning?
>> Well, yeah, that Well, it's not we're
» Well, yeah, that Well, it's not we're
not they aren't ABC anymore, so I'm no
longer confused on that one.
often there's an acronym for three
different things have the same acronym,
right? So, um,
>> so the ones we're particularly
» so the ones we're particularly
interested in and affected by would be
the Alberta Utilities Commission and
Alberta Energy Regulator and the impacts
that they have on our everyday life.
Yeah,
>> I think we're pretty for the most part
» I think we're pretty for the most part
pretty satisfied with which um with some
of the other organizations and what
they're doing, but those two in
particular
>> and what appears from our point of view
» and what appears from our point of view
to be unrestrained ability to impact
what happens within our municipality
and what seems to be at times to us
anyway, their ability to ignore
government directive
I've heard that um
>> because they're quasi judicial um they
» because they're quasi judicial um they
seem to have certain amount of
flexibility that nobody else has in
spite of what the provincial government
or others might request or ask and so it
is a big concern to us.
>> Um so I mean we put a lot on your plate.
» Um so I mean we put a lot on your plate.
We've talked about you know in Nehill
County we need economic development. We
need um the provincial government's help
to uh expand what's happening within
here. But we need that help from two
points of view. One is on the taxation
side and the revenue side which is
affected by
um assessment model review and the
mature asset strategy for sure. Um but
also um it also we need their help from
the point of view of um
was annunciated by councelor Christie
helping us formulate a plan and and
perhaps have grant money in place to
move those plans forward. And so when
Alberta Tourism or some government
department comes and says we have a plan
and you're part of our plan, we say we'd
love to be part of the plan, but we also
would love to have some money to make
that happen. Right? And so you see what
I'm saying, right? So we've talked about
those things. Um certainly we're
interested in what's happening in the
horseshoe Canyon Badlands Motorsports
area, but also throughout our county. We
want to see that economic development
take place. They talked about the human
resource side of things and the impacts
that our FCSS program has. We have a
very unique partnership here between
Golden Hills and um the six
municipalities make up our FCSS program
here. And it's is uniquely focused uh
here and so
just want you to be aware of that. Um
certainly the impacts on
governmentmandated
agreements like ICFs and how that
impacts our bottom line. We needed you
to be aware of that. And then we're
always concerned about how we operate
together as a council. And one of the
tools that we saw as being quite useful
was our course our code of conduct. the
expectation on how we would interact and
how we would behave towards not only
each other but also administration and
the staff that work for us every day.
>> Oh, for sure.
» Oh, for sure.
>> So, um I think those that covers pretty
» So, um I think those that covers pretty
much the things that we had on the
table. What I'd really like to hear is
kind of what your thoughts are like.
Where would you like to see things? Um
kind of what your plans are for as our
representative for this area. What would
you like to um what are your goals?
>> Well, I mean at at this point my my goal
» Well, I mean at at this point my my goal
in general first of all and and it is
going to be for this next little while
is immersing myself in the constituency
meeting with everyone to find out
actually what their full on on concerns.
My my because my my focus is to be able
to represent the full constituency up in
Edmonton. Obviously I feel very
passionate about and understanding the
differences that a rural community has
is not the same as urban. So um that is
that is my objective. I mean it's it's
how I it's how I see things anyways. So
to be able to bring that conversation
um up with with caucus and my and my
colleagues when it when it comes up.
Obviously, as a new MLA, it is I I'm in
a learning curve mode for a little
while. So, quite frankly, this this next
year, my I I'm my one year I'm on a
one-year goal with that of in this first
year of really getting a clear
understanding. And so that's why as I've
been meeting since I got in, I've been
meeting with people as quite regularly
like the calendar gets more and more
full each week as more and more people
because I keep giving the same ask to
every whether I'm meeting with a village
council or starting to meet with county
and I'll be meeting with school board as
well of
I can't attend if you don't call a
meeting like I'm looking I'm looking for
that reach out to my office um to
connect me with all of the organizations
or you know to start having those
meetings. That's my and I'm trying to
cram them in before we sit at the end of
October as a starting point.
>> Um and then I'll be able to make you
» Um and then I'll be able to make you
know better better goals of what I can
do to help and where I can help. Right?
So, um, that's that's my short short
answer of of where I am because of
course
it's a very large writing and depending
where I am, they all have very very
different needs. So, it's assessing
those needs, learning about them so that
I can then um, better figure out because
there the reality is there are limited
resources. Of course, everyone I can't
everyone's not going to get the funding
they need when they at at when they need
it. And and uh you know, I'm starting to
to get to know my colleagues. I'm still
in that phase as well. Um you know, our
first caucus retreat is in a week.
There's some I have not yet had a chance
to meet. So, um figuring out what
they're doing with their files, right?
That's it's it's that's okay. It's
everyone is new at some point. So, am I
drinking from a fire hose happily? You
know, but at the end of the day, my goal
is um
what can I do to make a like for our
area to be stronger and to be heard and
trying because we've got an aging
population. So, I know the constraints
we have when it comes to our se senior
housing issues, right? But, um yeah,
there's a lot on the plate and and
there's a lot of issues with
infrastructure. I'm certainly learning a
lot of that. everyone between aging
infrastructure trying to and I'm
learning about you know concerns have
been expressed on sometimes the
difficulty on the grant process and so
um where I can potentially help navigate
some of that with everybody but right
now it it truly is a
getting to meet people and getting to
start having those discussions so they
know who I am and figuring out because
there's a lot of people I mean there's
also the reality of the resource that I
can versus, you know, sometimes um the
ask is out of my purview. It's different
coming to meet with a county council
because you understand uh where I can
and where I cannot, you know, help with
with issues. But yeah,
>> well, I think we at one point in time
» well, I think we at one point in time
all of us were brand new sitting at this
table and we thought, wow, there's a lot
to learn. So the magnitude of what you
have to deal with is much greater than
what we had to deal with at that time.
So, I appreciate
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> just just the just the fact that you
» just just the just the fact that you
say, "I'm I'm trying to get to know
people. I'm trying to get to know the
issues within my constituency
and that you're making that your
priority." To me, that that I respect
that and and I certainly I'm happy to
hear you say that. So,
>> yeah. Well, the communication piece is
» yeah. Well, the communication piece is
really important to me. I what I've been
saying to everyone is I'm more in I'm
more interested with connecting. It's
not so much that invite is not because
I'm wanting it's not I'm not interested
necessarily. It's not the photo op. I
want to go deeper than a photo op in and
um you know I I have a few things in the
work of the you know to communicate
better because one thing I heard on the
doors a lot of people felt like they
didn't know
what was being done if anything. So, you
can look forward to a newsletter that
I'm going to be creating so that people
will know what I'm up to and where I've
been, which will also be helpful for the
areas that maybe if they see that I
haven't been in there, that might be
that flag of did you send me that invite
for me to know. I'm not going to be able
to go to everything. Um, but I've
actually already I've I've hit most of
the towns actually in the short time
I've been in one event or another, which
is not too bad, I thought, given it's
summer.
>> Um, but yeah,
» Um, but yeah,
I'm more of a I appreciate what you say
on on the code of conduct piece. I I am
there's two things I'm pretty passionate
about. It's policy, so I guess I'm in
the right job. and um really strong
governance and as someone who had to
build a framework of that for when
forming Alberta grains and creating a
code of like I understand that piece
because it is it is a building block. Um
so I know you met with minister and I
and you had already mentioned it to him
and and uh taking that note again um
yeah to follow up with him. Yeah,
please. Council,
>> just because you mentioned um
» just because you mentioned um
communication and I know for us around
the table, it's huge, too. And I know I
had reached out to Tara. I had a rapier
that asked um now that we've had a
change in our MLA, is the office still
the same? Is the phone number still the
same? So, maybe maybe this would be a
little opportunity for you to be able to
just communicate um to our folks how
they can get a hold of you.
>> Oh, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I got my
» Oh, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I got my
business cards finally this week.
Woohoo.
>> It's a bit of a work. I mean, so the I
» It's a bit of a work. I mean, so the I
did um
maintain the office in OldS where uh
Nathan Cooper was. So I did keep the
office. So that the location is the
same. And actually I'm very happy to say
I um was able to maintain the same
staff. So for those of you who knew
Brenda Barth, she is my constituency
office um and she's my assistant. She's
my right hand. So, and Atlanta is also
there on one day a week. So, um the only
thing I've done different is I've I've
hired a social media coordinator to help
me on that communications piece. Um so,
yeah, in terms of how the how to get
actually this is a great opportunity to
say anybody who is trying to get in
touch with me on my personal Facebook, I
will not be answering you there.
>> I um that is my personal Facebook and I
» I um that is my personal Facebook and I
am keeping that separate. I have a
business Facebook but more importantly
that is what reaching out to my office
there is an email there is a phone
number if you actually want an issue
that's where you go and I will get back
to you and uh it might not be in 24
hours I hate to break it to you but it
won't be unless it's an emergency
there's a lot of calls and a lot of
things but that is where Brenda handles
case work so it starts with her actually
so um I will I will put that. Thank you
for that PSA. I said that rather firmly,
but I feel bad when I see one, but I
won't I won't answer it because that is
separate. It's also I won't accept your
fan friend request to my personal, but
join my you can go to my MLA I've put an
MLA Facebook page, which we're still and
I got hacked on Twitter three weeks ago,
so I have no Twitter. I can't get that
back. So, have to recreate a new one
there. Well, I'm glad that you are
trying to carve out a personal space for
yourself because this can be really
important. Um, the sad reality sometimes
is when you're in this public role that
you've just taken, it's almost
impossible to go anywhere without being
Terara Sawyer MLA. And I I'm sorry for
that, but that's the reality some days.
But I am I'm happy to hear that you are
trying to carve out a a personal spot
for yourself. So,
>> yeah. No, it's not an apology, Ken.
» yeah. No, it's not an apology, Ken.
>> No, I know it's not. It's a good job on
» No, I know it's not. It's a good job on
your part that you do that.
>> At at the end of the day, I feel very
» At at the end of the day, I feel very
honored to have this job. Quite frankly,
it is my dream job.
Um, it it really is because I just think
it's important
and and to have the ability to hopefully
be a small part in improving this
province. I don't take that lightly, but
it is important because of that. And in
my past role, I was used even in that
pastor role people talk to you about and
that's that's fine. But because it's at
a this is a new level I've had to
have to create that that boundary. So
>> absolutely.
» absolutely.
>> Um it's not that I don't care. There is
» Um it's not that I don't care. There is
a way to get a hold of me. There's just
a proper there's a proper way. And I
don't I'm fine with I I would hope that
someone comes up and says hi to me.
Maybe I'll regret saying that later, but
um you know, you know, to me it is part
of the the role is um
>> it's hard to represent the people if you
» it's hard to represent the people if you
won't connect with them, right?
>> Okay, Councelor McGee or Deputy Ree,
» Okay, Councelor McGee or Deputy Ree,
sorry.
>> That's fine. Thank you. I I just want to
» That's fine. Thank you. I I just want to
say uh I think you're you're way on
track with having those clear boundaries
and communicating those and I appreciate
that because um the other point I had
written down that I wanted to share with
you is uh I appreciate your willingness
to be engaging with us and I really
appreciate that your entire caucus
appears to have a very engaging attitude
towards working with municipalities.
I still am looking for improvement for
it to be in the meaningful ways that
matter to us as well. But I do see that
the intent is is has grown greatly since
I first became a counselor. And I just
want to express that I love seeing that
and hoping that the intent is to
continue to grow that to a more
meaningful capacity.
» All right. Thank you,
Council Wto.
>> And since I were on YouTube, your
» And since I were on YouTube, your
constituency office is still the same
number, 556 3132.
Yeah, sure. Sorry. Let's look. I I don't
ever call the number.
>> Oh, okay. Um,
» Oh, okay. Um,
>> well, I did, so that's why I know what
» well, I did, so that's why I know what
the number is. Well, that's what the
number used to be.
>> So, I'm just I'm I'm just giving the
» So, I'm just I'm I'm just giving the
opportunity for people who may be online
watching whether how to get a hold of
you, I guess.
>> Well, I know because I Googled it
» Well, I know because I Googled it
yesterday and it's all there. It's the
same. 5563132.
Still the same. And and the the the
website. Well, it's not really a website
when you look at it, but that there is
an email. So, I mean, you can call the
office. I don't know. I I And you can
email the office and there is a response
there.
>> No, I just I just thought while people
» No, I just I just thought while people
were watching, if they had the ability
to get the number, that way it's it's
out there. And thank you very much for
coming in. I do appreciate it.
Good luck in your job.
>> And you're right, it probably it's
» And you're right, it probably it's
probably even worse than drinking out of
a fire hose. But, uh, that being said,
once you catch on, it it gets easier
down the road.
>> Well, for sure. And like I said, it's
» Well, for sure. And like I said, it's
it's no different than any other job
when you start a new role role. And it's
not an excuse. It's just it is the
reality. And I I have no problem if
someone
>> doesn't like that. I'd rather I'm going
» doesn't like that. I'd rather I'm going
to be honest. I'm not going to tell you
I have an answer and have an answer,
right? It's a I will get back to you,
which sounds like such a politician
thing to say, but it's the reality and
it's no different than any other thing.
I mean, I'm a pretty bl bl bl bl bl bl
bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl
bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl blunt anyone
knows me, I'm pretty blunt to begin
with. So, we'll see how that goes. Um,
but at the end of the day, I think it's
just it's important for everyone to
recognize. I mean
my intent is to represent this writing
and um you know I may not be able to
give everyone the answer or the result
they want but it but every voice is
going to be I'm going to listen to
everybody and what I can do I am going
to do my best to do.
>> So thank you.
» So thank you.
>> So thank you for your time. Noah. Um,
» So thank you for your time. Noah. Um,
we thank you for taking the time to be
here and to have this visit with us
today. Um, you are in a brand new role
and it's very important the role that
you're filling on our behalf. And so we
need to be very appreciative of the fact
that you stepped up and are willing to
do that. And so let us say thank you for
doing that on our behalf. And um,
congratulations on successfully
defending the seat. and we certainly
will look forward to working together
with you going forward. And uh if
there's um stuff that you need from us
or there's things that we can provide
information that helps you then uh it's
a two-way street. We don't want to be
coming hat to you all the time. We want
to also support and encourage what
you're doing as our representative. So,
so thank you for taking on the role and
stepping up and even if it's your dream
job, I'm certain some days it's going to
be a nightmare. And so, just be
encouraged, I think, is all I want to
say and and express our appreciation.
So, thanks.
>> Nope. Thanks very much for having me.
» Nope. Thanks very much for having me.
Acts of service, right?
>> Yeah.
» Yeah.
>> We all get called to something and I I
» We all get called to something and I I
feel called to this one. So,
>> good.
» good.
>> Yeah. So, and thank I mean truly thank
» Yeah. So, and thank I mean truly thank
you all. I know you don't have an easy
job. So, um thank you for what you're
doing on behalf of the county, all of
you. And uh yeah, look forward to many
more meetings.
We'll have lots to talk about and
they'll get better the further we go.
>> Yeah, exactly.
» Yeah, exactly.
>> Okay. Thank you.
» Okay. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much for spending the
» Thank you very much for spending the
time with us today. Very much
appreciated. So,
You did say you had a relatively full
calendar, right?
[Music]
» Thanks,
>> Darl.
All right.
Well, that was good.
Now, we're going to go back to the
regular business of council. And we left
off in the middle of a discussion on
policy 3-1,
which is council compensation and
expense reimbursement.
And I'm going to welcome you back, Miss
Khaled. And
um yeah, we had asked for some
information related to a a change that
we made in the past and I understand
that that was researched and you're all
primed and ready to tell us about it. So
anytime you're ready.
>> Yes, we have the answers. Um they're
» Yes, we have the answers. Um they're
just up on the board or on the screen.
The first two are just talking about the
current state that we're in where we're
talking about the current amounts as
well as the proposed the question on the
table. Oh,
>> can I bother you to enlarge the screen?
» can I bother you to enlarge the screen?
>> Sorry.
» Sorry.
That's great. Thank you. Sorry.
>> That was maybe a little bit much. There
» That was maybe a little bit much. There
you go.
>> Oh, we lost some of the numbers now.
» There we go. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Carolyn.
>> Um, we're still not there quite
» there.
» Who said it can't be done?
All right. So, the first two amounts are
just going over what's already in the
report. Talking about the 2025 current
amount and the 2025 proposed amount. The
question that administration had
received was about the cut that we had
that council went through in 2020. That
was a 15% base pay cut. Uh prior to that
cut, the amounts for Reeve, deputy reev,
and counselor are in the pri prior to
cut column.
After the cut, the amounts were 2,800
for Reev, for the deputy reev 2400, and
for the counselor, 21,00.
If the amounts had stayed the same prior
the prior to the cut amounts had stayed
and were the ones that were implemented
the current amounts with the adjustment
would be the ones on the most right. So
for the reef it would be 3,364.
The deputy reef would be 2914
and the counselor's amount would be
2578.
So that would be with those market
adjustments and if there was no cut that
would be the current 2025 amount for the
compensation.
» Well, thank you for that. I appreciate
that.
>> No problem.
» Uh uh council
>> sure you want to give
» sure you want to give
>> I like that.
» I like that.
Um, thank you for that. Um, in seeing
that I we're really not far off at when
you put it all together that what we're
proposing.
Okay. Um, further questions, discussion,
direction.
Councelor Ped.
>> Um I would actually make the motion that
» Um I would actually make the motion that
council move to approve make sure I'm on
the right one here. Policy 3-1 council
compensation expense reimbursement as
presented effective November 1st, 2025.
Okay.
All right. Any further discussion,
comment uh related to the motion that we
approve the proposed policy 3-1 council
compensation and expense reimbursement
as presented to be effective November
1st of 2021.
I'm Deputy Reed McGee.
>> I just feel after um my comments earlier
» I just feel after um my comments earlier
that I need to um say that I will be
voting in favor of this motion. I feel
that we have had a great discussion
though I'm still bit uncomfortable with
the overall salary. The o overall policy
is what uh the majority wants and I'm
quite happy with the conversation going
but um my position on that one number
isn't going to cause me to vote against
uh this motion.
>> Okay. Thank you for that. Any other
» Okay. Thank you for that. Any other
discussion, comment or question? Um we
have the motion to approve um as
presented.
Councelor Cunningham.
>> So I just want to say thank you for
» So I just want to say thank you for
getting those numbers that that I
requested. That was very helpful for me
because I didn't sit on council last
time and just as a rateayer at that
time. Um I have to say I thought it was
um very honorable of the council at that
time. Like we said, we were every we
were going through a very interesting
time in the world at that time and so
for council to take that cut uh I think
was was very like I said kind of set the
tone. So when when you compared that um
had that stayed where it was, we are
still actually under what that what that
payment would be if that amount had
stayed. So So that's why um I really
appreciate those numbers that make help
make things much clearer for me. So
thank you.
Thank you for that. Any other questions
or comment or discussion related to the
motion to approve the proposed policy
effective November 1st?
I don't see any. I'm going to call the
question.
Okay. All those in favor?
Uh motion is carried unanimous. And
again, uh, thank you, Miss Khaled, for
all that work. Um, very much appreciate
it. Um,
and so I know
the research and everything that you did
to make that happen, um, it's very much
appreciated on our part. So, thank you.
>> Thank you, council.
» Thank you, council.
>> Um, the
» Um, the
next item on our agenda would be 7.2.
two, which is policy 3-3.
Um, council appointees reimbursement.
And who's taking that one?
>> That would be me.
» That would be me.
>> Well, Miss Vanool, then whenever you are
» Well, Miss Vanool, then whenever you are
ready.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chair. I bring to you
» Thank you, Mr. Chair. I bring to you
today policy 3-3, council appointees
reimbursement. The purpose of this
policy is to establish clear guidelines
for the rates of pay, mileage, meal
reimbursement, and convention allowance
for our appointed members at large. The
comm um the committee of the whole had a
chance to review this policy back in
June as this policy is um in our review
schedule. At that meeting, council made
a recommendation to increase the PDM
rate to 320. However, the last couple
months, council has been reviewing their
own council compensation and actually
just approved $36128
PDM rate for themselves. Administration
put the same pdium in the proposed
policy. However, council retains the
authority to adjust this amount as they
see fit.
Another change that was made to the
policy was an increase to the meal
reimbursements by $5 each, making
breakfast $20, dinner $20, and supper
$30. This is for members who do not have
a receipt. If a member does have a
receipt, they can get reimbursed for
what that receipt is for as long as it
is an appropriate expense.
U we recommend that these changes take
effect November 1st, aligning with
council's compensation policy that was
just passed. That concludes my report.
I'm happy to answer any questions you
might have.
>> Okay. Thank you for that. Um any
» Okay. Thank you for that. Um any
questions from council regarding policy
3-3?
Um, sure. Councelor Witto,
>> I know it's an oversight, Carolyn. Uh,
» I know it's an oversight, Carolyn. Uh,
effective rate in red here is January
1st of 26. Did you want to amend that to
November 1st of 25?
>> Yes, I can change that on the
» Yes, I can change that on the
>> I'll just Yeah.
» I'll just Yeah.
>> Okay, good.
» Okay, good.
>> It was just an afterthought when we were
» It was just an afterthought when we were
bringing that one forward and Yeah, it
was Sorry, I missed that.
Okay. So, basically the two policies now
align with each other.
Okay. And that was the goal that we had
is that they would be in alignment.
>> That's correct.
» That's correct.
>> Councelor Woodstock.
» Councelor Woodstock.
>> Okay. So, I would like to make the
» Okay. So, I would like to make the
motion that council approved policy 3-3,
council appointees reimbursement review
as presented effective November 1st of
2025.
Okay. Thank you for that. So, we do have
a motion to approve the policy 3-3
council appointees reimbursement review
as presented effective November 1st,
2025.
Any further discussion, question or
comment related to that?
I'm not seeing any. So, are you prepared
for the question? All those in favor?
And that is carried unanimously.
So, thank you, Miss Vanderool, for that.
The next item on our agenda is
disposition of delegation and public
hearing business
and
I guess I'm going to look to you again.
>> Perfect.
» Perfect.
>> Miss Vander.
» Miss Vander.
>> Perfect. All right. So, earlier today,
» Perfect. All right. So, earlier today,
Dr. Schaefer attended as a delegation.
He was invited at council's request as
you had asked for a presentation from an
expert on Alberta's electrical grid. U
Dr. Schaefer provided that presentation
which gave council valuable background
and context on the grid and related
processes. As this was for information
purposes only, administration recommends
that council receive the Alberta
electricity grid presentation from Dr.
Schaefer for information.
» Okay, thank you for that. There any uh
discussions to the request that we just
received for information?
Councelor Cigan,
>> I just want to say thank you to
» I just want to say thank you to
administration for inviting um Dr.
Schaefer. I thought his presentation was
excellent and um he was very engaging
and I think it was really important for
him to hear our rural perspective out
here too. So uh with that being said,
I'll make the motion that council
receive for information the Alberta
electricity grid presentation from Dr.
Blake Schaefer.
>> Thank you for that, Councelor
» Thank you for that, Councelor
Cunningham. So, we do have a motion to
receive for information the Alberta
electricity
grid presentation from Dr. Schaefer.
Um, and the only comment I'm going to
make is it appears there's no E in his
shaper
on the stuff that he gave us.
>> So,
» So,
Anyway,
>> goodness.
» Okay, any discussion? If not, all those
in favor? Oh, sorry. You had discussion.
>> Just just a positive comment. I really
» Just just a positive comment. I really
enjoyed the information and appreciate
it very much.
>> Great.
» Great.
>> Thank you, Councelor Cunningham or
» Thank you, Councelor Cunningham or
Councelor Christie.
>> Both of you. Thank you.
» All right. I think it's time for a
break.
Okay, we got that nailed. Councelor
Cunningham made the motion. Councelor
Christie made the comment. Thank you.
All right.
All those in favor?
That's carried unanimously. Good thing
we're not all perfect here because I'd
be in the wrong room if we were.
All right, the next item on our agenda
would be 8.2, to regional parks and
recreation needs assessment delegation
by the Bellard group and I'm going to
say welcome Miss Sherlock.
» Thank you. Um so yes uh this morning I
um we had the delegation from valid
group come to discuss the project. Um,
currently we have them conducting a
regional parks and recreation needs
assessment so that we can determine and
evaluate the current state and the
availability of the recreational
resources for Neihill County residents
and the surrounding municipalities.
Um lots of this uh big proponent of that
was the is the engagement portion um
which we're currently in the middle of
as well as um the inventory um analysis
and assessment of the facilities that
are available. Um
and as uh Asid um detailed in his his
presentation um the uh background
research and benchmarking proponents
that uh will come later on in the
eventual report writing. So
uh with that I will bring it to council.
Is there any questions or anything from
there?
>> Okay. Thank you Miss Sherlock. Um, any
» Okay. Thank you Miss Sherlock. Um, any
questions? Um, Councelor Christie,
>> just a comment. I appreciate the
» just a comment. I appreciate the
diligence they're going after
information one-on-one to get
information because surveys scare the
hell out of me if you don't have
feedback. So, I appreciate that they're
taking time to talk to everybody.
» Thank you for that,
>> Councelor Penner.
» Councelor Penner.
>> I think it is also very important that
» I think it is also very important that
they're not too long because you'll lose
people. They give up. So, it cannot be
too long.
>> Yeah, I believe it's under the 10-minute
» Yeah, I believe it's under the 10-minute
mark to complete. Um, and I did ask
Christine at the break uh over lunch
about the website page that should be
launched tomorrow. Um, as well as some
of the social media posting. So,
>> okay. Thank you.
» okay. Thank you.
>> Any other questions, discussion? Deputy
» Any other questions, discussion? Deputy
McGee.
Um I'm I'm still sorting out exactly how
I want to go about what I have to say,
but um I first off I think who you have
come to us is going to do a very
thorough excellent job and I'm really
excited about this project and thank you
for that.
Um having said that though I I find it
challenging to be in the role that I'm
in when a survey goes out before I know
a survey is going out and what's in the
survey because again like said in a
different point, we are the lays on to
the community and I just feel um
inadequate to my residents if we're not
informed on those things. So, um, having
said that, I'd like to ask
administration if maybe we could
consider bringing our public
participation or communication policy
forward to revamp it so that we can
address that in a more constructive,
proactive way because um I just feel
like a piece was missed with how we
rolled this out
that makes it difficult for council to
do their job well.
>> Absolutely.
» Absolutely.
>> Go ahead, Miss Sherlock. So, in response
» Go ahead, Miss Sherlock. So, in response
to that, absolutely. Um, the intention
was to have council be the first point
of contact, but with the discovery night
coming and being that first week, um, we
had to take the opportunity where it was
available. Um, and so that was
essentially a soft launch for us to get
it out there. Um, make some of those
connections. But, um, of course, our
intention was always to be council
first. uh this was just the earliest we
could get onto the agenda. So I
appreciate that.
>> Thank you. And and for me having it as
» Thank you. And and for me having it as
part of this package would have been
very helpful
>> as well. Um but yes um through the chair
» as well. Um but yes um through the chair
may I ask Mr. Hogan if I could how to
word a motion to bring back the
participation policy?
» Well, it's pretty straightforward. I
think just uh request administration to
bring forward the policy regarding
public participation for review.
Public participation policy that's
called
Some moved.
Okay.
Council
Um, it's 18-2 public consultation
policy.
18-2
public consultation policy.
I'm just trying to get it to come up on
my computer here.
Um because it's under two. Okay. It's
actually called the public participation
policy
18-2.
It's got two titles in our website.
Super
Deputy McGee. You made that motion?
» Yes, that's good. Thank you.
» All right. So, we have a motion um in
the midst of this presentation. So,
let's deal with that. Uh council
requests administration to bring forward
for review policy 18-2, the public
participation policy.
Uh any discussion, question or comment?
Mr. Hogan? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just as
a note to council, that policy is
scheduled for review at this at this
time. So, it is coming up in its natural
rotation.
>> Okay. Well, I guess this just this just
» Okay. Well, I guess this just this just
affirms that or reaffirms that.
>> Um, so from your point of view, it's
» Um, so from your point of view, it's
okay to go forward with this motion or
you don't do you see it as redundant or
>> uh through the chair, I don't see it as
» uh through the chair, I don't see it as
redundant. If it's a priority to
council, then the mot appropriate. Um I
was just putting out there on the policy
review schedule though. This one is one
of the ones that
>> Okay.
» Okay.
>> is coming.
» is coming.
>> Deputy McGee,
» Deputy McGee,
>> when do you have a timeline of when
» when do you have a timeline of when
you're expecting to bring that back
>> through the chair? It's not there's
» through the chair? It's not there's
there's not been a specific meeting
slated for this review.
>> Okay. Well, then I'd like to keep the
» Okay. Well, then I'd like to keep the
motion.
>> This just sets it as a higher priority,
» This just sets it as a higher priority,
>> right? So, I'd like to keep the motion
» right? So, I'd like to keep the motion
for that reason.
>> Y
» um And I think for me personally this
goes handinhand with governance model
because um our conversation about that
last time there was a little piece about
the public part participation policy. So
I see them actually going a little bit
hand in hand. I think you almost can't
do one without the other. That's just
me.
>> Well unfortunately in municipal
» Well unfortunately in municipal
government sometimes we have what seems
to be totally either unrelated or
related things happening at different or
same other times. So
Okay. So, we do have a motion in front
of us. Is there any further discussion
to the motion that we request
administration to bring forward uh for
review policy 18-2, the public
participation policy?
There is none. I'm going to call the
question. All those in favor?
And that's carried unanimous. All right.
We're going back to regional parks and
recreation needs assessment. Um the
Ballard group delegation here earlier
today Any
further comment or discussion related to
that specific item?
Councelor Cunningham, please.
>> So, through the chair to the CEO, just
» So, through the chair to the CEO, just
because I don't have it just at hand,
can you just remind me what was budgeted
um in the 2025 budget for the parks and
recreation needs assessment?
>> Uh through the chair, we'd have to
» Uh through the chair, we'd have to
confirm that number. I don't have it off
the top of my head.
Any other questions or comment?
» Sure.
>> I'd make the motion that council receive
» I'd make the motion that council receive
for information the presentation
provided by the ballot group.
Okay.
Any further discussion?
Administration will get us that number.
Okay. All those in favor
and that motion is carried unanimous.
Thank you.
The next item on our agenda Oh, Mr.
Hogan. Sorry.
Um, dear Mr. Reev, just looking in the
uh at the second quarter budget variance
report there under operating projects,
the e the parks and recreation needs
assessment was budgeted at 110,000 to
come from the parks reserve. Uh we're
projecting that it's going to be about
75.
>> There we go. Thank you.
All
right.
Um,
delegation,
um, behalf of our local MLA,
Terara Sawyer,
Miss Vander.
>> Yes, that's me again.
» Yes, that's me again.
keeping you jumping.
>> Right.
» Right.
>> Yep.
» Yep.
>> All right. So, today we heard from El Em
» All right. So, today we heard from El Em
M Emila Terara Sawyer. She attended
council as a delegation at council's
request. Council highlighted local
priorities including Badlands
Motorsports, FCSS funding, provincial
downloading Bill 50, um council code of
conduct um replacement, municipal
involvement with the AU, provincial
invitation to Horseshoe Horseshoe
Canyon, and potential tourism funding.
Emily Terara Sawyer Sawyer also shared
her goals and priorities in representing
the area. As this was for information
purposes only, administration recommends
that council receive MLA Terasawyer's
delegation for information.
Thank you for that.
Any question or comment or someone care
to make the motion? Councelor Christie,
>> I make the motion, but I appreciate her
» I make the motion, but I appreciate her
ability to
absorb a lot of stuff in the first year
and it's overwhelming and I'm glad at
this point after the election, she still
thinks it's her dream job. So, I really
appreciate that. So, anyway, I'd make
the motion to receive for information
the presentation provided by MLA Terara
Sawyer.
>> Okay, thank you for that. Any discussion
» Okay, thank you for that. Any discussion
to that motion?
If not, all those in favor?
That motion's carried unanimously?
Uh, Mr. Ganon, I was remiss in not
thanking Miss Sherlock for being here
and making her presentation. So, please
pass um council's thanks on to her for
having been here today and
helping us wade through the
presentation. Please do that.
>> I will. Thank you.
» All right.
The next item on our agenda is council
and committee reports.
So, um, although you weren't in the room
at the time, councelor Phobes, I did put
a placeholder in place in case you
wanted to provide us with anything from
Nehill Housing. If if you do not, that's
fine. I just wanted to make sure that
the opportunity was there if you wish to
take it.
>> And I would like to say thank you to the
» And I would like to say thank you to the
public for being patient while we
figured out what was accurate in all of
our minutes to make sure that we didn't
have anything left. that needed to be
addressing. So that is why it was a
little tardy and giving you the whole
year's worth in one shot,
but I just wanted to make sure that you
were aware of what was going on within
the organization.
>> Okay. Thank you.
» Okay. Thank you.
>> And then can I just This is it wasn't
» And then can I just This is it wasn't
part because I wasn't in the room. I
just want to say thank you on behalf of
the Torington Egg Society. They sent me
a text message. really wanted everyone
on council to know that they appreciate
the amount of um money that you're
putting into keeping that building and
the community alive.
>> So, they just wanted to say thank you so
» So, they just wanted to say thank you so
much for that.
>> Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the
» Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the
appreciation from them. Yeah.
All right. Um Thank you. Um
next item would be 9.2 two, which is the
division five update, which is of course
you, counselor Cunningham. So, whenever
you're ready.
>> Sorry. And I know we were a little
» Sorry. And I know we were a little
rushed last time, but I'll still try to
buzz through this quickly this time.
Just a couple things from from last
meeting. Um, Sergeant Day uh when he was
here as our uh detachment commander in
Three Hills, he received the King
Charles II coronation medal. Um, he just
there was some logistics about getting
him and K division together. So he did
receive it while he was in the role here
in Three House. So I just wanted to
acknowledge um the fact that he did
receive it. Some great pictures out
there on on social media. So again,
congratulations to Sergeant Day. He's
the current acting detachment commander
at the RCMP. Um future to be determined.
So yeah, so just again congratulations
to him and thanks to him for all the
work he did when he was here. Um, I also
had a call from Jason Calhoun who asked
me to express uh his and his family's um
thanks to Nihill County for our
involvement in their celebration um that
was held last month. Um he just felt
that it was really important to let us
know that um they really appreciated
Nihill County being there um being a
part of that celebration. So wanted to
pass that on. Um as mentioned earlier to
yeah I was at Discovery Night in Three
Hills last Wednesday. Um, Reef King, you
might know more eventually with the
numbers when when Mr. Stewart has them.
Every year it just seems like there's
more people. I don't that's not an
accurate, but that's just my guess. Uh,
very well attended, young to seniors,
all age groups. So, again, thanks to to
FCSS for the for the work they do on
that. Um, lunch with friends was there
serving um, barbecue and yeah, it was
uh, the museum was there with ice cream
and so yeah, it was just a really really
great night again. So, thanks to
everybody for that. And just to let you
know, we were to have police advisory in
August. And just due to a couple of the
members being away, it was delayed until
September 11th, which is next week. No,
this week. This week, this Thursday,
what day is it? So, yeah, if anybody has
any questions or comments or wants to
pass anything on, I will have that
meeting on Thursday night. So, awesome.
Thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you for that, Councelor
» Okay. Thank you for that, Councelor
Cunningham. Any comments or questions?
If not, we'll go on to 9.3,
which is community futures, and that's
councelor Christie.
>> There you go. I didn't get the executive
» There you go. I didn't get the executive
summary into this council meeting
agenda, but it'll be in next week's or
the two weeks from now. Um, the
highlight is community futures, heart of
the community, third or yeah, third
quarter closed. There was 47 nominations
and representing 26 businesses in the
northwest corner of that of the
community futures area. So that's Bazano
to us north. So we'll make an evaluation
the first part of October on who won
that quarter, but the nominations are
now open for the fourth quarter which is
the southeast or southwest corner of
community futures boundaries.
So, if there's any questions from the
executive report, I gave it all to
council now, but it was kind of short
notice, but our meeting was last
Thursday night, and I've been kind of
busy since then.
>> I have no idea what would have been
» I have no idea what would have been
keeping you busy.
>> Uh, that that was uh wasn't that 9.5 the
» Uh, that that was uh wasn't that 9.5 the
harvest report.
Haven't heard anything today is good
enough. All right. Um, moving on to 9.4.
four which is division one and that's
you deputy re McGee.
>> Thank you. And it's not really division
» Thank you. And it's not really division
one. I should have just said uh deputy
reev report. Um I had taken a personal
day to uh go do some tourism activities
myself and came across some data I
wanted to share with you. I've passed it
on to Carolyn to bring up on our screen.
I stopped at the Kirks alpaca farm. They
collected data for just this last three
months.
>> Wow.
» Wow.
>> And what you see on this screen is all
» And what you see on this screen is all
the pins on her map of where all her
visitors have come from.
>> Um she also boy she has passion and it's
» Um she also boy she has passion and it's
very exciting. I'm very excited to be
promoting community and what egg is all
about. I um also had a good visit with
her. She asked if I had time as a deputy
reev and so I did and she uh just wanted
to give accolades to our economic
development team. They have been really
um helpful and in her advancing her
business and she's just um really
thrilled with where she's come. So uh I
just thought you would like to see this
data. It's it's an great interesting
way. So, she's got this poster up in her
in her building and welcomes people to
put a pin on it. And that's um it's
impressive. Very impressive.
So, if you don't think people from all
over the world come to visit Alberta,
you soon find out differently.
>> And this is rural Alberta.
» And this is rural Alberta.
>> Yeah. I don't know for some people
» Yeah. I don't know for some people
>> better comment.
» Nope. That's all I have to say.
>> Um and apologize. This just through the
» Um and apologize. This just through the
even you don't have to except if you're
not. Um it just reminded me when we had
the presentation earlier. We were
talking about recycled
um solar panels and I said last meeting
that I would give a quick report. Is it
okay if I do it now or I didn't put my
hand up though?
>> Oh, I think we I think we quite easily
» Oh, I think we I think we quite easily
accept that
>> condition. I'll make it very quick. Um
» condition. I'll make it very quick. Um
things are going along relatively
smoothly. Um we awarded a new contract
for the landfill operation services and
that's up on the hill pushing the
pushing the garbage down and whatnot.
And um I'll say it wrong, but it's
Ambiipara. They're actually a Brazilian
company that's got the contract. Um, and
not not the cheapest. Um, but some of
the stuff that they offered, I was not
part of that selection committee. Um,
they are putting in grizzly mats. So, a
grizzly mat is something that lays on
the garbage.
>> So, you don't need as much. And we've
» So, you don't need as much. And we've
been talking about this for the late
last eight years that I've been on solid
waste, buying them, and so we don't have
to buy them. They're going to do it
themselves. And so, it saves us buying
dirt to lay on top because it's covered
up. they lay these grizzly mats on and
um so that was very positive on their um
application as well as they're going to
keep the staff that we already have up
there which is a private contractor but
that's up to them. Um we
have completed with a few amendments the
workplace violence and harassment
prevention plan and just to let you know
um but we're a small um commission down
there workplace. So the staff if they
ever have trouble with their manager um
they have to go to the board chair or to
the vice chair. Just so you know that's
where we've covered some of that stuff.
Um
we the landfill inspection was done um
costing $65,000.
Um and we got to do more on the gas. Oh,
sorry. It was done and we have to spend
$65,000 on more gas monitoring now. It's
crazy. New mandates are continually
coming up. It's
so ready. Huh? That's another thing.
Exactly. Um, but what you have to
remember is back in the day l Anfield is
built very clay base and so you didn't
have to put a lining in it and so now
for be for good practices we're doing
that. So because we're in a valley not
like the county one it's on flat they
fill up the different valleys and of
course one runs into the next one. So
now we're having to do some work. It
hasn't been mandated to us, but it's
just good practice so that down the road
there's not a huge
expense that is is um put on. So we are
putting a liner in between the two cells
where they run together. So any runoff
goes into them and runs down to our
collection pond. So just another
expense. Um we are staying within the
budget and everything. Um we also need a
burm. There was a burm that was somehow
dismantled years ago. The water runs can
off the hill, but it can't just keep
running. It has to catch in a burm and
run around to catchments. And it's just
um requirements.
Um we are having trouble with battery
fires, and I brought this up before the
last one. Um the payloader, it ignited
it, of course, when they're pushing
garbage. Um then lithium batteries are
the ones. And so in the manual, it says
you need to drown them. You need to
drown these batteries, stop them from
burning. Well, they found out with some
of these lithium batteries, they come
back to life once they dry out and they
continue. But that's what's in the
manual. So, our new practices down there
is it's sand these the batteries now in
our own. So, the province is changing
some of that wording I guess in that
they must go into sand. So, they have to
be collected. But, we are having a lot
of problem. Luckily, our guys up top are
are on top of it immediately as soon as
they see a little smolder there because
we do not want to fire as you've seen in
some of the other municipal um
landfills. Um the egg plastic pilot
program ends here at the end of
December. Um don't get mad. We're going
to continue to collect them because
there will be a program in place. We
don't know what it is right now. We were
one of the pilots um locations and I'm
pretty sure we'll become a permanent
program. um site I should say when the
permanent program comes in on January
1st. Most of the bags right now are
going to Bashor but if you drive by
Bashor there's a massive pile up there.
So there's but we will continue to um
collect them. Um the budget we've caught
up the 2024 books are at the auditors.
So hopefully we'll have them by our octo
our last meeting here in October before
the change in in um who sits at the
table. So now to solar panels,
if you have a solar panel at home and
something go, we all have the little
ones on at holiday trailers and whatnot.
Um, we as an electronics recycling
collection location and there's multiple
around the community. So I know there's
a little one in carbon too, but they all
come to the drum. We will continue to
take them because it's just smaller
amounts. But anything to do with
industry, we are not collecting period.
and we have not up till now we send them
on to Armor which is the Alberta
Recycling Management Board. Um and they
have to deal with it because don't be
right there's a lot
>> there's a lot damaged in transit even
» there's a lot damaged in transit even
being built there's a lot. So um but if
you have one at home you can still bring
it in for recycling. We do still collect
them. anything that has a cord, the
electronic recycling um program, we
collect all that stuff, but nothing to
do with industry at this point. And I
don't know if we ever will.
» And sorry, um there's not necess
is offering for the drum hella. We do
get our minutes. They're always behind.
But um we're just trying to work out
what the drum the town of Drum Hala is
going to continue to do on the
administration side for the landfill.
» Okay. Well, thank you for that.
Are there any other um
anybody else wanting to jump in?
Um
maybe what I would do is beg your
indulgence and we'll just talk about the
central zone meeting that happened here
um Friday. And just a reminder that
there is a um central to zone general
meeting coming up and I did send you all
an email uh related to that. Um and I'm
sure you probably all lost it, but it's
October the 3 and it's uh feeasant back
golf club I think in in um Lome County I
think maybe is where it's at.
Um,
so I mean everybody's busy, everybody's
doing different things. It was um one
thing that really jumped out at me was
came out of Big Horn and uh the the
Reeve there was telling us that they
just have a new operations facility that
they opened and it's a net zero building
and they got a million dollar grant from
FCM in order to make that net zero
building happen
and so they just uh got that thing
opened. Um county here has some new and
interesting things happening on their um
land use bylaw and MDP and they've
created a
egg nonresidential
designation in their land use. So it's a
way of preserving egg land. So they
allow they didn't up till now they've
never allowed this previously but they
now allow two subdivisions on a quarter
and the remnant
and To get that second subdivision, they
have to do an area structure plan
and they have to they're looking at this
egg non-residential for the remnant. So
>> red deer
» red deer
>> very interesting very
» very interesting very
>> and the goal is to preserve farmland.
So
just a
so just a couple of things and of course
um you know our friend uh Paul from
Pinoa County he talked about the fact
that um in Canada I think it's $4.2 2
billion to the gross domestic product
for steel whereas canola is 44 43.7
billion
and he talked about uh $51 billion in
car production and the amount of support
that's going on equally.
So anyway, just couple of little tidbits
from that meeting.
Anyway, um if there is no questions or
anything else, I would take a motion to
accept for information. Councelor
Cunningham.
>> I'll move the council accepts for
» I'll move the council accepts for
information the council and committee
reports as presented.
>> All right. All those in favor and that's
» All right. All those in favor and that's
carried unanimously.
And then one of our more fun events
which would be the council followup
action list.
one of the things we do regularly that
Mr. Zir really appreciates and loves
and um the only thing I'm going to say
uh related to that is um thank you to
Nhill County and administration and all
those involved in getting the Buffalo
Jump Road reserviced. It's an amazing
little piece of roadway. Thank you.
Speed still 80 kilometers an hour. We
did not upgrade the speed limit.
>> Councelor Christie, the speed limit
» Councelor Christie, the speed limit
still 80 km an hour.
>> Hey, come on. Last night I waited three
» Hey, come on. Last night I waited three
times for trucks and they told me we're
going slow
and one of them was deer hunting.
>> Yeah. Running over.
» Okay. Any questions on the council
action items?
I don't see any. So, I would accept a
motion to accept. Councelor Christie,
>> I so moved.
» I so moved.
>> Okay. So, I have a motion to accept the
» Okay. So, I have a motion to accept the
council follow-up action list as
presented.
All those in favor?
And that's carried unanimously. Thank
you.
So next item in our agenda is close
session. We have two items that I know
of in close session. One is third party
business under access to information act
section 19 and the second one is
intergovernmental relations section 26
under the access to information act. I
would entertain a motion to go into
close session.
Uh, I think that was all of council.
Councelor Phobes, thank you. We'll
designate you. All those in favor
and that motion scared unanimous. Thank
you.
>> One minute break.
» One minute break.
>> Yes, let's take the one minute break.
» Yes, let's take the one minute break.
>> Let's take two. I don't think I can get
» Let's take two. I don't think I can get
there. Okay. Somebody asked for two.
Okay. Um it's 3:29.
Um we had a motion to come out of close
session at 3:27. We recessed briefly to
allow the return of the public. It's now
3:29. I'll call our meeting back to
order. We're in close session for two
items under third party business section
19 and intergovernmental relations
section 26. There are no motions coming
forward from close session.
And the next item of business is motion
to adjourn at 3:29. We are adjourned.