The Town of Irricana is assessing its needs through a Saskatchewan Municipal Government Sustainability Self-Assessment Summary.
CAO Alvin Melton brought forward the self-assessment to allow council to determine where it stands in a number of departments: governance, administration, finance and financial management, service delivery, public safety, infrastructure, demographics and economic trends.
During the previous two council meetings (Feb. 4 and 19), councillors scored themselves using a checklist, which will be completed during the March 4 meeting.
“For me, it’s just a way of providing council another means of evaluating what they’ve been doing and we’ve been doing,” said Melton. “As administration, we can use it as a tool that we can see what needs improvement, what doesn’t need improvement and how we can make the town a better place to live in.”
So far, the Town has scored fairly well in the governance section, said Melton, noting a recent Municipal Affairs investigation helped in this regard, but the infrastructure section showed room for improvement.
“We knew that parts of the infrastructure need work,” said Melton. “So it will be interesting to see going forward if we can make sure that those improvements are put into place.”
Currently, the Town is taking on two major projects by upgrading the Irricana Centennial Centre ($750,000) and the water treatment plant ($500,000). Council admitted during the self-assessment that without MSI (municipal sustainability initiative) funding, it would have a limited ability to fund such projects.
Melton hopes residents will complete the checklist to give council and administration an idea of how residents would rate the Town in these departments.
However, there are certain sections of the checklist that residents may not be able to answer, such as whether or not there’s a process in place to assess the infrastructure requirements of projected service needs.
In fact, even Deputy Mayor Larry Martin said he didn’t have enough information to answer some of the questions on the checklist.
“I think there were some (questions) on there that were difficult to answer,” said Martin.
Nevertheless, Martin went on to say it’s a valuable exercise because it allows council to get feedback from residents.
“They could certainly give us some input and we would certainly welcome it,” he said. “By asking and answering individual questions, it gives you an overview of where you’re at in an entire topic.”
Residents can access the self-assessment on the Town’s website, www.irricana.ca, or at the next council meeting on March 4 at the Irricana Centennial Centre.
Emergency management
The Town of Irricana rescinded a recent amendment to its emergency management bylaw, Feb. 19.
The amendment was rescinded because it added an unnecessary provision to the original bylaw, according to a staff report.
Prior to the change, council was required to meet and have quorum to declare a state of emergency.
Rescinding the amendment will allow the emergency management committee, rather than council, to declare a state of emergency. No quorum is necessary for the committee, making it much easier for the Town to make a declaration and bring in the necessary resources more quickly.
During the meeting, Deputy Mayor Larry Martin asked if the Town’s liability would change in emergency situations.
“Whether you declare a state of emergency or you don’t, you run a liability risk,” said Martin. “I wanted to make sure that changing this bylaw was going to mitigate that risk to the Town. Basically, make sure that we are still fully covered in the event that there ever was a lawsuit.
“If you did declare a state of emergency due to some affect and it caused somebody some sort of harm because of it … then potentially you could be running a liability risk. On the other hand if you didn’t declare a state of emergency and bring in the resources you needed to deal with the problem, and somebody had a problem, you could potentially be at risk as well.
“Either way you could be running a risk and I just wanted to make sure that our liability issues were mitigated.”
CAO Alvin Melton assured him that hadn’t changed and the Town’s liability in emergency situations was mitigated.
