What's Killing our Trees?

Many have noticed that several of the beautiful big poplar trees between Beacon Heights and North Road are sick and/or dying. The problem started a couple of years ago at the east end  and has proceeded West at an alarming rate.

The Village of Beiseker has recently taken steps to find out why these trees are dying.  I was totally shocked when preliminary soil tests revealed a high concentration of chemicals in the ground killing the trees!  How the chemicals got there is a mystery. More testing will be done to pinpoint the concentrations and hopefully track down their source.

I'm having trouble believing that anyone would purposefully poison these poplar trees but I must consider all possibilities.  I'm hoping it was some kind of an innocent accident.  If you can shed any light on this mystery please contact the Beiseker Village Office at 403-947-3774.

Road Work is Expensive!

During and after the Town Hall meeting last Monday evening, the condition of Beiseker's streets has been mentioned several times.

We have a few critical streets here in the Village which need some serious work.  Here's the ones I can think of, in my personal order of priority -

• The mud bog at the corner of Second Avenue and Seventh Street.
• The Beacon Heights Road from Beaver Place to the Public Works Yard.
• First Avenue from the Public Works Yard to the CN tracks.
• Fouth Avenue from Friendship Park to Seventh Street.
• Seventh Street from Fourth Avenue to First Avenue.
• Sixth Street from Third Avenue to Fourth Avenue.
• There are also some lane-ways which need work.

But, a huge amount of road work could mean increased property taxes.  I for one am opposed to such a property tax increase.

There are some provincial grants available.  The old grant for improving streets has a new name, but it's still offered.  There are also the Municipal Sustainability Grants available, although significantly reduced by the province.  We on council would like to continue our Main Street upgrade project with a big chunk of that money, but maybe we should be looking at that decision again.

There is also the option of naming a portion of a project a local improvement and assigning a frontage tax on those properties directly affected by street improvements.

What do you think? Let me know here; it's free.  I would like your input.

Keeping Beiseker Growing

We've all seen municipalities in Alberta run into problems fueled by their own desire to expand.  Growth isn't a bad thing, but municipalities that accept growth at any cost often end up creating problems that they have difficulties in solving.

Here are some of the problems I see;

1. Growth across a barrier (such as a major river, or a huge highway) and then getting residents and services from one side to the other across that barrier, will haunt the municipality forever.
2. Creating residential and commercial subdivisions to fill an immediate demand, with little thought of upgrading the infrastructure to support them. What usually happens is the long term residents end up paying for those improvements -- even though the systems servicing their residents or businesses were operating quite satisfactorily, before!
3. Creating subdivisions with little or no forethought as to how the new residents or patrons will get into and out of that subdivision.

If re-elected, I will encourage council to monitor all expansions to ensure that the growth does not over-burden our existing infrastructure, roads, and village services.

We have two residential and one industrial subdivision within the village which are currently in development.  The Grasslands (on the west side) is starting up again, while Skyland (between Third Ave. and the CN tracks) is completely stalled.  The industrial subdivision on the east side of the tracks is growing, slowly.

Our engineers tell us that the current service infrastructure can handle up to seventy homes in Grasslands.  When we get close to that number, we must insist that developers design a plan to handle any more increases.   The best solution at the moment appears to be a deep sanitary sewer line on the South side of  the village, running from the west to the east, and into our upgraded force main.

I believe that the south end of Beacon Heights Road must be upgraded so it will provide two exits and entrances to Grasslands.  In my opinion, a portion of this upgrade will have to be funded by Grasslands.

Council must stay on top of these developments to avoid the pitfalls seen elsewhere in Alberta!

2012 Priorities: Paving

Our first council meeting of 2012 will be held on Monday, January 9 at the Village Office.  I'm sure we'll start talking about priorities for the 2012 budget which for us is set in May of each year.  Besides the issues I mentioned in my New Years message a few days ago, there are a number of other projects we need to consider.  One of my favourites is pavement.

 There are a number of streets in the Village which need paving!  They are;  the avenues starting with Second Avenue going south at the Mountain View Credit Union, then Third Avenue going south from the Community Links building, and Fourth Avenue going south from the entrance to Friendship Park.  Beacon Heights Road going south from Beacon Heights also needs paving. 

The residents along Seventh Street turned down pavement a few years ago, but I think we need to ask them again!

All of these can't be paved over one year, probably not even over five years, but I believe we need to start the process of engineering, base preparation and applying for grants.

Let me know what you think.