Mayor's Blog - 2015 Blogs

The last few weeks have been quite busy, as September there is always a big push to get things moving after the summer. Council has many meetings coming up and as I write this I am in Calgary where we have been meeting with different ministries at AUMA. My next blog will focus on an update of these efforts. Budget, strategic planning, and an organizational meeting are all coming up within the next three weeks so I will have no shortage of blogs moving forward.
I do want to take a minute though and provide an update on Gloryland for all those who are not aware of what is happening. We have been speaking a lot about Gloryland over the last year as we are trying to deal with some issues we have been trying to resolve there. This year Council decided to spend just under $400,000 on fixing the drainage in Gloryland and get water flowing in the right direction. It is our hope that this will have a significant effect on the condition of the roads next year, as things will hopefully be a lot drier and easier to work with. The contract has been awarded and surveying has been taking place over the last two weeks. Equipment should be on site imminently if not already and work will commence. At this point we are confident all the work will get done before winter sets in. The spring will require some seeding as the intention when we are done is return it back to grass.
A reminder to residents that we may have to dig up portions of your access (driveway) to fix culverts and repair drainage issues. We should only be affecting the portions that are in our own right-of-way and not going on to private property. Once these are repaired they will be put back to the gravel standard. There are a handful of properties (maybe less than that) that have done some hard surfacing of their driveway beyond their property line. As they are aware they have done this at their own risk and taxpayers will not be paying to put that back to what was there but instead putting it to the gravel standard that it should be. This point was stressed in our Gloryland meeting with residents back in June, but I would like to highlight it again.
Administration is also working on a policy on how we deal with this drainage and these ditches and culverts moving forward so we are not doing the same thing again in five years. That policy will come forward in the coming weeks. We will then let the 2016 year take its cycle and next fall get a good evaluation of what impact this drainage has made on the road surface and base. At that time it will be determined if additional measures are needed. As always any solution to a problem requires time and money. Evaluation needs time to measure success and Council is committed to finding a solution. We appreciate residents’ patience and understanding as we work towards this solution together. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to call our construction Hotline at 780-843-6822. The Hotline is hosted by Associated Engineering weekdays from 8:00am to 4:30pm.