Future of First Avenue

Beiseker village council has been pondering over what to do about the "back road" into the village.   The back road is an extension of First Avenue, south past the Public Works yard, and connecting with Range Road 261 after leaving the Village limits and entering Rocky View County.  The county's section of the road connects with Highway 9 south of the Village.

This road is a pothole breeding ground!  We've spent lots of money patching and re-patching that short stretch of road, running from the bridge to the CN rail tracks.  The County paved their portion of the road south of the railway tracks, but the village can't afford to do that.

It has been suggested that we remove the battered and pothole-ridden pavement and return the road to a gravel road.  I'm concerned about the dust blowing into town from a graveled road, but this may be our only option going forward.  Environmental concerns and rules prevent us from using many dust proofing products that we may have in the past.

We already have a dust problem along the extension of the Beacon Heights Road, south past the Grasslands entry.  Almost half of the complaints I receive are about the potholes on the back road and the dust along Beacon Heights Road.  It has been a hot topic at Town Hall meetings, too!

Quite frankly, I don't have a solution to the problem.  The back road is one of many entrances to the village.  Maybe we can live with one dusty one!

Building a Better Beiseker

Over the past couple of weeks, Village Council has been involved in some strategic planning in regards to the provincial grant money we will receive over the next few months.

For Beiseker, that mostly means street upgrade planning.  We have begun to initiate some of the smaller projects but the larger ones, like street paving, will have to be researched to find out if we can afford them.

The new provincial government has cut back some of the grant money promised, but we still have a fairly large amount to spend on improving life here in Beiseker.  I understand we must commit our funding before the end of 2017.  Again, stay tuned.

Q&A: Taxes and Services (and Community Schools)

I've received some questions over the last few days - most of them involved property taxes and what we get for our money in the Village.  Here's the questions and my answers.

Q:  How come the mill rate went down, but my taxes went up? 
A:  Beiseker's mill rate did actually drop by a small amount, however our overall assessment rose.  That means that some of the properties in the village actually went up in value from last year.

If your property was one of those, your taxes increased.  Most increases were small (less than $10/month), but a few of us took a bigger hit.  Tax payers can contest their assessment but they cannot contest their taxes.  Contact the Village Office (403-947-3774) for more information.

Q:  What do we get for our tax dollars, anyway?  
A: A small municipality must provide the same basic services as a large one.  Beiseker must provide its citizens with most of what Calgary provides. Your tax dollars pay for streets, roads, sidewalks, street lighting, road maintenance, water and sewer services, a fire hall, garbage pick-up and disposal, parks and recreation, public buildings, and parks along with a host of other things to keep this village running smoothly.

Q: We don't even have a fire department, do we?
A: On the contrary, our volunteer fire department is, in my opinion, one of the best in Canada!  That opinion is shared by others who know more about fire departments than I do! Our fire hall is open and manned twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for more than 340 days a year! I am very proud of our Beiseker Fire Department!

Q: You said Beiseker Community School was the only community school in Rocky View. What about Springbank Community High School?
A: To my knowledge, Beiseker and Springbank both were declared community schools.  That means they could go ahead with the process of becoming a community school.  But Beiseker was the only one to complete that process, so it became the only Rocky View School to be designated a Community School by the province.

Q: Is the village going to do anything about repairing or repaving the rest of the streets and sidewalks  in Beacon Heights?
A:  After we replaced the pavement on Chinook Crescent, the other streets in the subdivision showed their ages too.  We have a fair bit of grant money, but we have many improvement projects ready to go, too.

Council will have to crunch the numbers and see how much they can do with the funds we have and our priority list.  Those who are very concerned about the street of sidewalk in front of their home should.  If you're one of them, please, write a letter to council detailing your concerns.  It can be addressed to council via the Village of Beiseker (Box 349) or delivered directly to the Village Office.

Potholes!

The streets of our village have been plagued with potholes and frost boils every spring, but this year it's particularly bad!  Thank you to those who have informed me and the Village Office about many of the problem areas. 

Frost boils are caused by too much water under the roadway, making the surface layers very soft.  We can either barricade them off and let them firm up as the water table goes down, or we can dig up the area, put in new material and pack it well.  Obviously the first choice is the cheapest.  Each soft frost boil area will be assessed and dealt with over the next few weeks.

Potholes are caused by somewhat similar circumstances but usually affect the top layers in a small area.  I think I've been informed about every pothole within the village limits.  Some have been filled with a sand, gravel and tar mix called "cold mix," while others will have to wait until our streets are swept clean during the first week of June. 

After the streets are swept the remaining potholes will be repaired.  One of the areas of big concern is at the corner of North Road and First Avenue.  That area will be attended to during that first week of June. 

If you see another pothole or frost boil which seems to have missed our scrutiny, please report it to the Village of Beiseker Office, by calling 403-947-3774!

Thank you very much for you patience.

Keeping Beiseker Moving

In my opinion, Beiseker has more unfinished streets than any other municipality in our area.  By unfinished, I mean unpaved.  We've had so many other issues to deal with, lately, that our streets have taken a backseat. I believe the time is come to start improving our streets in this village.

There are three areas of concern that I can see;

1. Seventh Street remains unpaved, many years after the petition was presented to stop that project.
2. Part of every Avenue (except First Avenue and Fifth Avenue) are unpaved.
3. Beacon Heights Road south from the entrance to Beacon Heights to the junction with First Avenue is full of potholes, washboard, and generates a huge amount of dust every summer despite the very best effort of our Public Works department.

If re-elected, I will encourage Council to revisit those three projects. I will press Council to ask our engineers to gather us some up-to-date figures on the cost of paving each of these streets.

With those figures in hand, we will be able to create a priority list for the improvements.

Our sidewalk rehabilitation program is almost complete, with very few sections left to replace.  I would like to see a portion of our streets improvement program (which is funded by the provincial government) set aside for paving.

I will also propose council meet with the residents along Seventh Street to discuss their street, and the cost of that project.  Nothing should be done to improve that street until the majority of folks who live there agree.

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.

Seventh Street

Thank you (who ever you are) for your comments regarding 7th Street paving. Some properties would experience a greater increase than others according to the number of feet actually fronting on the street.  In other words the longer the sidewalk across the front of your property, the more you pay! 

We will probably be asking the residents along that street again whether or not they would like their street paved.  And again it will be their democratic right to turn us down by petition.  We (Council) would like to have all the streets in Beiseker paved.  Paved streets are easier to maintain, cut down on the dust, and they raise the resale values of the homes there.  We would like to have the provincial streets grant program pay for them but that could take decades!  That's why a local improvement is considered.

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.

Issue #6: Street Upgrading

Village Council has embarked on a program of street upgrades for many years. Funds are limited. Much of the funding for our street upgrades comes through a provincial Streets Improvement Program (2002 SIP) and there are other provincial grants which becme available sporadically. Usually the Village of Beiseker must add to these funds to be able to complete these projects. Sidewalks and paving are often done as a Local Improvement which means that a fee for a portion of the upgrade will be added to the property taxes for all the properties along the upgraded street. The whole process takes a very long time.

Residents can stop a planned street upgrade by presenting a petition to Village Council. This was the case on Seventh Street.

If re-elected, I will push to have council revisit the paving on Seventh Street now that the "cooling off" period has passed. Water flows better on paved streets! Once we get Seventh and Ninth paved we can work on the avenues. This will help rain and melt water exit town easier and faster.