Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Special meeting of Council Oct 29 2013

Short meeting of council took place after the organizational meeting:

Added to the agenda was South Saskatchewan Regional Plan under correspondence.
Request for Information and Freeze on Capital Expenditures under other business.

Highlights of the meeting:

Council Orientation on Dec 9 and 10 all council members will attend an orientation sessions with an expert on municipal affairs in Pincher Creek, this is a good educational session for new councilors and is done in conjunction with the two Pincher Creeks and Cowley to reduce costs.

Conventions-Mayor and two councilors will be attending conventions in November.

At dates to be determined on Nov 5 council will be given a tour of all municipal facilities, this as always been done for incoming council's it makes it easier to relate to the issues and decisions you will have to make on these various facilities over the next four years.

Council meeting schedule for December will be brought up on Nov 5, councilors given time to looks at dates.

Alberta Southwest Dinner-On Nov 6 there will be a dinner and meeting for all Councils and CAO's in Pincher Creek who belong to the Alberta Southwest Region to explain the functions and services provided by the group

Invitation from South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, on up coming meeting to review the draft plan that is available at www.landuse.alberta.ca  there will be meetings for the public to provide input from 4:30 to 7:30pm on Nov 5 at the Elks Hall, if you can not make it on that date it is also available in Pincher Creek same times on Nov 26 at the Community hall.

Request for Information:

Councilor Ward requested the following questions with the information to come back to council by Nov 5.

Provi    1. Provide Council with the complete MCNP budget. Including all GL accounts, and including Municipal Reserves.
2.         2. Provide Council with all Administration employment contracts along with their job descriptions for each and evaluations for the last two years.
3. Provide Council with all CUPE job descriptions.
4. Provide Council with an update on all outstanding CUPE grievances.
5. Provide Council with a list of all ongoing litigation and legal issues currently facing the                Municipality and all legal advice, if any, which was provided to the municipality on these subjects.
6.         6. Provide Council with an update on the Wolfstone development and RV Park project, including any legal opinions and possible solutions.
7.         7. Provide Council with an update on the Provincial Flood Recovery Program and what monies have been received and how they have been dispersed.     
Admi
A          Administration requested additional time to provide this information council agreed to have it brought back at the Nov 19 meeting. 

            Councilor Kovach attempted to make a motion to have all hiring and capital expenditures put on hold until council is provided the financial information it is looking for. CAO stated that the nine month financial update was being brought to council next week he requested that motion be with drawn until then Council agreed with that position. 

            It was a short meeting but very productive as far as beginning the flow of information between council and administration.     















3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those are good questions you have asked. It is very important to know where you are at before you start making decisions. I hope this council will be very transparent, with way less in camera meetings. I hope there is open debate. This council has the opportunity to get the people of the CNP interested in moving the community forward again. I also hope that this blog continues to inform us all as to what is going on.

Anonymous said...

Some of that information (evaluations , CUPE grievances, legal advice) they can only give you in camera so you would have to treat it confidentially. The rest is public information, so you can share it with us.

I hope you will insist that only the legitimately confidential parts are presented in camera (as the law requires).

Anonymous said...

BTW, it seems bizarre that Council would even need to ask for the budget in this way. If this is the "budget" that was adopted by the past Council it should automatically be public information. Maybe I'm missing something here, is the "complete MCNP budget" a different document?

Also, what about:

38. The Municipality ensures that budget dollars are not being moved between general ledger accounts and the full variance is being captured in the variance reports.

74. The Municipality provides regular updates of the overall cost of the fire and rescue services. The update should include work volume and variance report versus budget in order to re-establish trust within the community.


According to the "Action list" they are already doing these variance reports. Doesn't that last part imply they should be made public?