The County of Stettler council reviewed several policies at its March 13 meeting.
Policies are reviewed regularly as part of a policy review schedule; several were before council at the January Committee of the Whole meeting for discussion before being brought before a meeting for amendment and passing.
The first policy brought before council was the Technology, Internet, and Network Usage policy, which guides county technology use by councillors during their terms.
There were no significant changes to the policy outside of some re-numbering and reformatting.
The updated policy was passed in a motion by Coun. Paul McKay.
A second policy reviewed was the Texas Gates policy.
“It’s pretty succinct,” said director of municipal services Andrew Brysiuk.
“It’s just formatting changes.”
The Texas Gates policy “establishes criteria for the installation and maintenance of Texas Gates across developed or undeveloped road allowances.”
Again, the main changes in the policy had to do with numbering and formatting.
The motion to approve the updated policy was put forward by Coun. Justin Stevens.
A third policy reviewed was a Community and Road Naming Guidelines policy.
The goal of the policy is to establish “a coordinated and consistent methodology for the naming of communities and roads withing the County of Stettler.”
According to chief administrative officer (CAO) Yvette Cassidy, the policy is intended to help establish prevent duplicate names in hamlets and generally prevent confusion.
One example provided was the renaming of Railway Avenues in the hamlets; Railway Avenue in Erskine has been renamed Railway Avenue Erskine to differentiate it from Railway Avenue Gadsby.
Coun. Stevens noted that he appreciated the clarity offered by the policy but he was “very leary to go down the road” of doing a significant amount of re-naming in the county as people do get used to what roads are called.
“I don’t want to start this … all over again,” said Stevens.
The fourth policy to be reviewed was the Security Camera policy.
Intended to establish a consistent expectation by the public of what data is stored by the county, the updated policy changes some language and addresses the fact that some modern cameras record audio as well as video.
A fifth policy review looked at changes to the Booking and Use of County Meeting Rooms Policy.
“There are some minor changes,” said Brysiuk.
Changes include the possibility of fees being set for the use of the room, and the requirement of a staff member to be present, particularly outside of regular business hours.
The fees to use the county meeting rooms are set in the county fees bylaw.
A sixth policy reviewed was the Hours of Operation policy.
The policy sets standard hours of operation for both the County of Stettler administration office and shop.
For the office, the hours are set as 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; for the shop, the hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. These hours exclude statutory holidays, though it was noted by CAO Cassidy that council has the authority to close the facilities on other days by providing a resolution.
Other exceptions include the CAO having the authority to close the office to the public when insufficient staff is available to provide reception duties due to being short-staffed and being busy with meetings or weather events.
The final policy reviewed was the Botha and Erskine Lot Pricing policy.
Due to “not enough sales” in the hamlets, assessments have stayed the same and the recommendation was to keep the asking price set at $22,880 in Erskine and $19,500 in Botha for county-owned properties.
This policy is reviewed annually due to the possibility of changing assessments.
All the policies reviewed by council were made available on the County of Stettler website for at least 30 days for review by residents before the meeting for feedback. No feedback was received.