Coalhurst council CAO report

By Kenyon Stronski
Sunny South News

Coalhurst council’s CAO report opened with a question from Coun. Jesse Potrie. At the last meeting, councillors had brought to the table the question of attending multiple parades over the summer, with some landing on Aug. 4. Coun. Potrie commented these dates were not listed in the report.

CAO Kim Hauta responded to the question, “ We’ve mainly pout ones at this point that I’ve officially received an invitation to. I know that council members have listed some other ones or whatnot that you can certainly look at via that list. The other thing that I will say with the city of Lethbridge — within the last few years prior to COVID — we almost didn’t go to it on the basis of the criteria that they had for entering. It was such that you had to be decorated to the extent of almost 90 per cent of your entry and they didn’t want certain things and you had to have certain insurances and all kinds of different things on there, so it almost made it to the point where the previous council said ‘well, it’s almost upon us, do you want your stampede parade or you’re turning roses.’ little towns appreciate what we bring, but I haven’t seen an official invitation from the city. We can certainly ask them if they have criteria and they can forward it to us.”

Mayor Lyndsay Montina noted that Lethbridge almost definitely has criteria relating to floats before commenting on Coalhurst’s float.

“What does our float actually look like? Like is it just a town one? Is it a float or is it just something like a truck? I imagine that would be considered decorated at that point if it’s a float. I think that we should, we are literally neighbours to them and I think that for my thought this is kind of one of those things of being out in the community whether it’s here or there because they are so close to us.”

Hauta then confirmed that he would reach out to Lethbridge, get an invitation to the parade and would forward that information to council at a later date.

Coun. Deborah Florence posed the next question, commenting on an exercise that Lethbridge County is putting on.

“I have a question, well more of a comment about the Lethbridge County exercise. That’s really exciting that’s happening, are there any further details about anything like that or just that they’re doing this exercise? Like is it a regional thing”

Hauta noted the exercise was mostly a brief on information, and began because the County didn’t get the chance to meet with certain fire chiefs.

“They didn’t meet with some of the surrounding fire chiefs or something for that effect and it’s just for answering questions. It didn’t involve us because we weren’t invited to that particular meeting but in the past, there was a grant to do these things on kind of a regional basis and we have participated previously with those so they’re just sort of suggesting and working on a date. Before that, the date they had to come forward with had to be right during the Alberta Styles Convention — something that’s not really over time if you’re looking for council representatives. If we participate it qualifies for the requirements of the program the Local Emergency Management Act, it comes in the background. As far as the regional thing, I know they were trying to set up meetings with the CAO which is due in the summertime depending on availability. It’s been scrapped twice now so we’re still looking for that update.”

Moving on to Coalhurst’s solar energy project, Coun. Scott Akkermans asked if there was any timeframe on when the solar farm would be complete.

“I did receive an email later this afternoon,” confirmed Hauta. “It looks like that the final commissioning meeting could be possibly as early as this Friday and then from their some training. Then not necessarily will the switch get flipped-on for good, but at least to the point where that work is done.”

The discussion moved to a possible event or unveiling for the solar project, which Hauta mentioned the town could definitely do.

“We certainly can. The MCCAC (Municipal Climate Change Action Centre) and government and whoever would love it if there are lots of people there when you officially turn the switch on,” to advertise the initiative to the media and general public.

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