No Need of an Airdrie Hospital?

I have learned from a reliable source that Alberta Health Services and the provincial government have not yet even identified any need for a new hospital in Airdrie!

They have identified the need to expand the Airdrie Regional Community Health Centre!  Expansion of the Health Centre is a great start, but what about the desperately needed hospital?

In light of the current economic conditions and the state of the province's coffers, I didn't expect to see them digging a hole and putting in the foundation for the new hospital.  But I did expect there to be something in the preliminary planning stages.  I might have even thought that the province and the city would have scouted out a good spot for a hospital, and maybe even started the process to acquire the land.

Hospitals are expensive to build and operate.  I don't expect to see one built in Airdrie in the near future.  Now it appears the new Airdrie hospital has moved into never-never land!

Here we have a fast growing city with around 50,000 inhabitants, without a hospital - or even future plans for a hospital!  Somebody has dropped the ball, here.

Welcome to Beiseker, Aquilla Homes

It was recently announced that Aquilla Homes of Strathmore has been chosen as the first Custom Home Builder for our new Grasslands residential subdivision. 

I am very excited over this announcement!  This means that our long awaited building season is about to start! 

Aquilla, welcome to Beiseker's Grasslands!  I sincerely hope this will be the beginning of a long friendship!

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!