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CAO quells the rumours about ambulance service in Picture Butte

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Sunny South News

By Stan Ashbee
Sunny South News

Putting rumours to rest — Picture Butte has ambulance agreement with AHS until 2017
Rumours continue to run rampant throughout the Town of Picture Butte in regards to the rumour the town is getting rid of the municipality’s ambulance service.
Town Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Larry Davidson wants to set the record straight — Picture Butte town council wants to assure residents and the community abroad the town has an agreement with Alberta Health Services (AHS) until 2017.
“To provide ambulance services throughout the region and we will continue to do so to protect the interests of our residents,” Davidson explained.
After 2017 arrives, Davidson noted, there will be a contract review process and it will depend on what the province wants to do with ambulance delivery.
“A number of years ago municipalities were always responsible for ambulatory care and then the province finally took it back. We’re one of the few communities throughout the province that actually continues to provide ambulance services on a contract basis with AHS. With that said, we have a great team of staff. We want to make sure our residents are well cared for and we will continue to do that,” said Davidson.
The Great Picture Butte Bylaw Clean Up
Throughout history, bylaws were put in place by a municipality’s council of the day to keep law and order. But, over time, some bylaws become outdated or no longer a necessity or new bylaws have been approved before the old ones were even rescinded.
Picture Butte town council recently approved three readings of a clean up bylaw or Bylaw #846-16, which rescinded approximately 50 old and outdated bylaws from over the years.
“We did a historical review of all of our bylaws. It was kind of an interesting project, where we looked at every bylaw that had been approved by councils since the inception of the municipality as a village. What we found was, there was a number of bylaws over the years that had not been rescinded when a new one was put into place and things like that,” said Davidson.
He added one bylaw was in regards to tying up a horse in the street and other weird bylaws from the hallowed halls of local history.
Now, the CAO noted, the town has all the bylaws current and enforceable, which is the most important part.
According to Davidson, it took him close to three weeks to finish cleaning up the town’s previous bylaws and bringing them up to 2016 standards.
“You had to physically go through every bylaw and look at what was rescinded and what was the purpose of the bylaw and then kind of track it,” he added.
Picture Butte council briefs
According to the CAO, he and Mayor Wendy Jones, will be attending the Mayors’ Caucus in Edmonton this month.
“It will be a great opportunity for us to get to meet some of the new ministers and understand how the new government operates in the context of municipal operations,” said Davidson.
On Mar. 21, the town will be hosting an open house at the Community/Seniors Centre at 7 p.m.
“Talking about our survey we did last fall of our residents. It’s been a long time in coming but council is going to actually speak to the survey to the residents and show them some of the things we’re going to undertake,” Davidson said.
Davidson also said the town finished the next round of community consultations for the town’s recreation and culture master plan. “Those were all done on Feb. 17. Now the next step is for the consultant to compile all that information and put a draft report together and then ultimately we’ll get that back out to the community,” he noted.

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