Chinook Crescent is Lookin' Good!

A quick tour of the Village today showed me a couple of projects looking good!  The repairs and paving project on Chinook Crescent appears to be very, very close to being finished.  And it looks really good, too!   I see there are a few things still to be completed, but those folks along the Crescent can now finally use their street again!


I would like to thank you all for your patience during this project.  They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but Rome probably took less time than Chinook Crescent!  Council will have to re-design and re-write future contracts so these kind of delays don't happen again!

And on Main Street I noticed the newly painted real estate office is looking very spiffy these days.  That change of color really sets it off!  Well done!

(More photos of the freshly-paved Chinook Crescent and Main Street can be seen on my Flickr photostream)

Streets, Lagoons, the new Firehall, and Taxes!

We had an excellent council meeting last evening (Monday, June 11). 

First of all, I was able to give Public Works Foreman Bill Hnybida and his crew the praise they deserve for getting the Village all ship shape for last weekend's Country Fair.  I also thanked Gail Peckham for all of her hard work getting things organized here at the office Saturday morning.

We discussed your concerns with the street cleaning project.  Council and Bill agreed to investigate the situation and find solutions for next year's street cleaning project. 

We were also very concerned with the Chinook Crescent paving project, which seems to have stalled again. I have no idea why this project is taking so long.   We asked our own engineers to find out why these crew keep vanishing.  Maybe the paving crews are getting lost following their GPS to Beiseker!  We also asked our engineers to remind these wayward crews that the completion date is fast approaching!

Next came the sewage lagoon.  The lagoon needs upgrading to meet new environmental standards.  This will be started over the next while. 

The new firehall appears closer to reality now.  Critical decisions are to be made this week and the project is to proceed quickly after that.  We should have a new firehall within about two months after that.  Stay tuned on this one.

Last and certainly not least, we set  the tax rate for 2012.  As I mentioned before, our overall assessment dropped by more than $3 million, but the cost of running the village either remained the same or increased.  Our Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) worked over the budgets for every Village department and brought a proposed final 2012 budget to us last night, which we accepted. 

We then set our millrate with a 4.5% increase.  Add to that the 1% the School Boards want and the total increase will be 5.5%.  It is based on your assessment, so some of you will notice an increase while others who were assessed at a lower amount may notice a small decrease. 

Overall, I was very proud of our CAO and Village Council for keeping the village portion of the increase to less than 5%.  I hope you all will not notice any drastic changes in the delivery of services around the village over the next twelve months. 

Your tax notices will be coming out over the next few days.  Check them over and let me know if you have any concerns.

Bean Counters Report In!

At last week's Village of Beiseker Council meeting, our auditors reported to council on the financial situation of the village at the end of 2011.  It wasn't pretty! 

Two main things contributed to Beiseker's cash shortfall at the end of 2011; the Alberta government's slow transfer of funds and over $300,000 of owed taxes!

1. Slow Payments;  Beiseker had three major projects to pay for in 2011.  They were the Beiseker Airport repaving, Main Street upgrading, and Chinook Crescent repairs.  The first two projects were to be paid for by provincial grants.  But the contractors want to be paid as soon as their work has been inspected and deemed satisfactory.  The Village of Beiseker had to pay the contractors even though the promised provincial grant money had not arrived!   
2. Back Taxes Owed;  As mentioned earlier on this blog, Beiseker has been unable to collect over $300,000 of property taxes even though it must still pay the education portion to the province in full!

Problem number one has been solved; the provincial bucks are here!  But problem number two is still with us.

The solutions;

• The Village will have to borrow some money to pay the bills while we wait for our 2011 tax bucks to trickle in.
• If you are one of those who are having difficulty paying your 2011 property taxes, contact the Village of Beiseker Office (403-947-3774).  There is a good possibility that you can make a plan with the Village to pay those taxes over a longer period of time.
• Village council will likely have to scale back or postpone some projects over this upcoming construction season until we have full funding in hand.
• We will be asking the provincial government (through the AUMA) to speed up future transfers to us and other small municipalities so we might avoid these cash crunches.
• We will also be asking the provincial government (through the AUMA) to consider collecting their Education Portion of the property taxes based on a formula related to the percentage of taxes collected.  

The problems cited here do not constitute a "Doomsday Scenario" for Beiseker.  It is just simply a minor glitch.  But Village Council is determined to make sure we get Beiseker out of this situation before it does get serious.  Stay tuned.

We Have Concrete!

They poured the new sidewalks on Chinook Crescent on Thursday, November 3!!  And they look great!  Touch up work, driveways, and connects will be done next week.

I was very sad to learn that Brenda Hnybida has resigned from council.  I've always respected her insight and her points of view.  I wish her all the best and I hope to see her back in municipal politics one day in the future! 

Even I have trouble being in two places at the same time!  There will be the usual Remembrance Day Ceremonies held in the Acme Hall on November 11.  They usually start around 10:00 a.m.  I usually attend those ceremonies and sometimes I have been honoured to represent the Village and place a wreath there on our behalf.  This year I have been invited to the Remembrance Day Ceremonies at the Aero Space Museum of Calgary.  I am a Director at that museum and I am very pleased they have restored the ceremony this year after its absence for a number of years.  I haven't decided which ceremony I will attend yet.

We had the Stage East wrap-up meeting the other night.  We talked about how we might make the evening even better!  We didn't make quite as much money this year but we'll still be able to support a bunch of community organizations and projects next summer.   This year we helped the following groups or facilities:  The Beiseker Community Centre, The Beiseker Library, Beiseker Playschool, Beiseker Parks and Trails, The Beiseker Food Bank, The Beiseker Fire Department, and the B.U.M.S. New Years Eve Celebration.  And we decided to seriously consider doing it again next October!  Stay tuned!

More Chinook Crescent (and other things)

They're working like crazy on the sidewalk portion of Chinook Crescent.  They're hoping to pour concrete in the next couple of days!  Let's hope the weather co-operates!

Halloween was very quiet over here in Beacon Heights.  I hope you had a quiet one, too.  We didn't get as many Trick-or-Treaters this year.

It looks like the deficiencies on the Main Street project will have to wait for spring now.  There's only a couple of things left to do but the contractors don't get paid in full until everything is done!

As you've heard, we have a by-law enforcement officer now!  He'll be looking for obvious boo-boos around the village;  Things like unlicenced vehicles on public property, untidy properties, vehicles parked on public reserve land, speeders, unlicenced dogs and cats, and a host of others.  Let me know how you think it's working.

Chinook Crescent

We have curb along Chinook Crescent!  Looks good too!  This project is not going as fast as we at Council had figured!  I think because it's such a "small" project that we may get shunted down the priority list.  Council has asked the contractors to make sure the folks along there have a sidewalk to walk on this winter even if it means putting down a temporary asphalt one until spring.  We've had many good weather days lately but the street was deserted of any workers.  Let's hope they can get more of the project done before the snow flies!

Again, thank you to Bill and his Public Works team for working with the engineers and keeping Council informed on the project.  And a huge thank you to all those residents along Chinook Crescent who have had to live with this disruption on their street.