Two municipal trucks stolen from Coalhurst

From left to right: Coalhurst councillor Heather Caldwell, Councillor Jessie Potrie, Mayor Lindsay Montina, Councillor Scott Akkermans, Councillor Deborah Florence.

By Kenyon Stronski
Sunny South News

Moving into the Director of Operations report, CAO Kim Hauta had a few items to cover; showcasing some bad luck for the town.

“The first item, it’s not on here, but obviously we had a little bit of bad luck. Originally we thought we had three trucks stolen but it turned out to be two. We did locate one today but it’s a little beat-up – but not drastically, there’s some work to be done. It was backed into the shade just outside of town, not very far. The other hasn’t been returned yet or hasn’t been located.” Began Hauta. “We didn’t have our security cameras in the shop, we thought there was one guy but apparently there were four guys that were there. They ran the gate with the truck to get out, and as said they took two trucks. We thought it was three but there was one truck in the other shop. One of the trucks was hooked up to the float for Coaldale which wouldn’t have taken that much disconnecting to take too but for some people it’s a tall task. They did apparently try to get a police officer’s vehicle as well but the battery was dead and the bobcat was behind it.”

Confirming that the town is working with insurance, Hauta said all-in-all there’s damage to the fence, some damage to the shop door and while one truck has been returned, and was located Aug. 9, it has acquired some dents.

“Inside of the truck they used lysol to get rid of the fingerprints so it kind of needs some detailing as well. Apparently there’s a fair bit of going down, I understand, in farms and stuff as well. We did get some fingerprints off of the one truck today – and that’s the big item I guess.”

Also included in the report, the first nine disc golf baskets for the Town of Coalhurst are now up and available at Miners Park. Hauta did note he has seen people utilising them and they do have the initiative to put others up which will happen later in the fall.

“At the spray park we had our first incident today so we had to shut it down. We expected it much sooner than this, and I mean we’ve had lots of other things like gravel, food and wet toilet paper in the park so we’ve had some minor, little incidents but we’ve never had to shut it down. This is recirculating so it’s important to have it clean and disinfected. The re-surfacing will also happen at the end of the season.”

With no questions arising from the Director of Operations report, council motioned to move onto reports from the Mayor and Councillors.

First up to report was Coun. Deborah Florence.

“Since the last council meeting there has not been a lot of meetings and actually most of them are off for the summer. I have attended the Barons, Nobleford and Coaldale parade and I’m able to go to our parade so it’s been a really great summer.”

Next up to the stand was Coun. Scott Akkermans, who echoed the fun summer and the joy of the parades he’s attended, but also had a few questions for Hauta.

“I had the SouthGrow executive meeting on July 25. From that front it’s been business as usual and some of their funding money is coming in. They also are using the same manager for MCCAC (Municipal Climate Change Action Centre) to do their solar project for the solar chargers so it’s going to be kind of the same people working on that. Besides that I had the Coaldale parade with Councillor Florence and Mayor Montina which was a lot of fun although we should make a note that for next year we will need quite a bit more candy for that one. Halfway through we were being very sparing and there were quite a few kids. Then for questions I was curious about the Sundance Development, when will we be getting to the next step for that one?”

Hauta replied that there would be another conference call tomorrow and that the town is still working with lawyers and engineers on how to present to the other side..

“At one point they came forward with the plan of a possibility of how they were prepared to foot a certain amount of dollars but we felt that it wasn’t enough to do what they’re proposing and wanted a better figure because if we accept that money then the town will be on the quote for the rest. It sounds like they may be able to tender for a more concrete price.”

Coun. Jesse Potrie spoke next, and did not have much to report other than a meeting with the Recreation and Culture Committee. He commented that he did attend the Magrath parade however did not drive in it.

Coming up to the last Councillor to report, Coun. Heather Caldwell echoed attending the Recreation and Culture meeting as well as generally getting ready for Miner’s Days. She also attended the Nobleford parade, noting that it was the most fun thing to do.

Last up to the stand was Mayor Lyndsay Montina.

“ I had an executive meeting, but otherwise just going to the Coaldale Parade which was a ton of fun and there were lots of people with me. I had Luca with me and he would say things like, “I think there’s 20,000 people with me.” and he was doing that the whole time so we had a lot of fun out there. Last time I know in our Community of the Whole we were talking about finding parade float stuff and I have come to learn that the pandemic has wiped those out but no worries, I’m going to design something for the Whoop Up Days parade and it’s going to be really great and really pretty. You guys are going to love it.”

Get More Sunny South News →