Citizen Satisfaction Survey in the works in Picture Butte

By Stan Ashbee
Sunny South News

Little Bow MLA David Schneider paid a visit to a recent Town of Picture Butte council meeting held Sept. 12, according to town Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Larry Davidson. The visit, Davidson said, was to update the town on what was happening within the provincial government.
“We had specific questions related to the proposed carbon tax and the implications for municipalities, as well as looking at what grant funding that might be coming available. The federal government is looking to implement Phase Two of their federal infrastructure program. The first step is to get the province to sign off as part of a funding commitment and then to identify the criteria. I’m hopeful that will be announced relatively shortly, so we can put a submission in, as part of our ongoing infrastructure maintenance program,” Davidson explained.
Council, Davidson added, has also been reviewing a new proposed traffic bylaw.
“Council has made some modifications to that. We’ll be bringing that back in the near future,” he said.
Davidson also noted council named a new road to be created as a result of Mr. Chronik’s subdivision on the south side of town and it will be called, “Chronik Avenue” with access off of 5 Street south.
Davidson said council has approved and is allocating $20,000 from reserves to pave an area of 4 Street, where the town competed a waterline repair. “Tentatively, we’ll propose to do that around the end of September, weather permitting,” he said.
Council also approved a letter of support for an Oldman River Regional Services Commission (ORRSC) grant application to complete new orthophotos for the region. “They’re kind of like the topographical photos you’ll see where it shows the buildings and such located on the properties. That’s something we’ve been looking forward to because we’ve been updating all of that kind of stuff,” he said, adding all the members of ORRSC will receive the photos, if the grant funding is approved.
An in-camera item on the agenda, Davidson said, included information regarding collaborative discussions with Lethbridge County on developing a waterline agreement for the rural waterline coming from Lethbridge, in which the county and the City of Lethbridge manages for the town. “We’ve been working through some of that and getting close,” he noted.
Davidson said the town is proposing to have the 2017 Citizen Satisfaction Survey out for residents to respond to over the next few weeks. “It will be an online version only. We’ll be putting information in our utility bills this month. There will be some on our signs and our website. We encourage all of our residents to participate, as much as possible. We had a 14 per cent response rate last year, which from a survey perspective, is still quite good but I’d like to see it even better.”
Davidson said the survey is basically just a report card on how well the town is doing in a number of areas. “From customer service to actual service delivery.”
Jamboree Days, Davidson said, was a huge success and he has heard a lot of positive comments from the parade to the various barbecues and activities throughout town.
“I just really want to thank all the community groups for taking that on,” he said.

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