Irricana Town council approved the donation policy in a four to one vote, Jan. 21.
The move was made after a discussion about the policy, which was re-written after the Jan. 7 meeting.
Councillor Peter Dunn suggested the inclusion of a maximum $500 monetary contribution be deleted from the policy, which led to a lot of discussion.
Deputy Mayor Larry Martin said he was reluctant to delete the maximum because he didn’t want to exclude situations when a monetary donation would be in order. However, he said he also did not want the policy to be used only for monetary donations.
Councillor Josh Taylor suggested council cannot know all the circumstances the donation policy will be used for and reminded council any request that didn’t meet the criteria outlined in the policy could be denied.
Martin asked for the wording in section 2.0 of the policy to be changed for clarification. The section stated any costs associated with a donation would be redistributed into the appropriate department. Martin asked for the wording to be changed to include, “for example, any donation of Town resources will be charged to the donation budget line rather than the specific department budget line.” This indicates a specific general ledger account will be created for donations.
Dunn did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Borrowing bylaw
Council unanimously approved a borrowing bylaw for a $490,000 line of credit for the Town.
The funds will be used for the Town’s monthly operations until taxes are collected in 2013 and will act as a reserve to cover operating shortfalls.
Melton said the interest rate will be three per cent on the line of credit, set up at Alberta Treasury Branch and clarified the line of credit would have an interest rate of three per cent.
Mayor Lisa Constantini said she was unsure why a clause on the bylaw indicated guidelines for extending the loan when a line of credit does not require extensions.
Melton explained that Alberta Treasury Branch created the form and will not allow changes to it.
Accounts payable
The report for accounts payable was not prepared in time for the meeting and could not be reviewed.
Stormwater project
Council quickly reviewed several ongoing capital budget projects for the two new councillors.
A keynote in the review was the nearly $60,000 3rd Street swale project that has, to date, almost doubled in cost from the original estimate. The project came about when stormwater that collects in the alley caused damage to a surrounding residence. The ongoing project requires the development of a drainage system to relocate the water to a storm sewer.
Melton said the increased cost was due to the project being larger than expected. He added the affected landowner was consulted and council decided to spend the extra money to get the job done right.
Water treatment plant
Martin requested Melton find out the economic feasibility of combining the ongoing water treatment plant upgrades with the planned upgrade to water storage facilities. Melton said the two projects were not being completed together because the cost would be too high and the water storage facilities do not need to be upgraded at this time.
However, he said he will look into the affordability of combining the two.
