The Town of Crossfield is beginning a marketing effort to seek 300 soft sign-ups for fibre optic Internet from its residents in the hopes of attracting a fibre optic provider to the community.
Mayor Nathan Anderson said at the July 5 council meeting the Town has already been configuring new subdivisions with the infrastructure needed to support fibre optic. The Town is looking at methods – such as utilizing existing sewer lines already in the ground – available for use as a trunk line for fibre optic.
“We don’t necessarily want to be a provider because that’s not our business,” he said. “We can certainly be a facilitator or promoter.”
Chief Administrative Officer Ken Bosman said many fibre optic providers have programs available if a community hits a target number of users. Those programs offer certain services at particular prices.
Bosman said though those prices would be a “rough and approximate” estimate, the Town would share those terms with the ratepayers and see if there would be interest.
“We’re a pretty small community and we actually have extremely good communications with our ratepayers,” Bosman said. “When we need to get the message out, we can get it out pretty quick.”
If the Town of Crossfield approves the use of security cameras, Bosman said it would be looking at installing a tentative number of 15 to 17 across the community.
With a draft policy concerning the use of cameras to be presented to council Aug. 16, he said a public engagement process would also be discussed and adopted.
“This is one we obviously need to make sure the public is 100 per cent engaged and on board to the highest degree possible before we go forward,” he said.
The cost per camera is about $1,500, Bosman said.
The security camera usage can tap into the Town’s point-to-point radio network could operate with no additional cost to the municipality, according to Bosman.
“One of the reasons we went ahead with this project was to facilitate things of this kind, (security cameras), without having to incur data charges,” Bosman said.
Crossfield’s Municipal Street Naming Policy has been tabled until the Aug. 16 to add amended provisions that included parks and a public engagement strategy.
Deputy Mayor James Ginter said the policy currently allows residents to submit input for naming, but argued it isn’t enough because the odds of someone actually reading the policy were low.
“No one would know that they can have input and then there would never be any input,” he said.
Councillor Hadi Feltham suggested the first newsletter of the year could feature notice that the Town was seeking submissions for street naming with details about how residents could make a contribution.
