Rosetown council tightens delegation deadlines

By Ian MacKay

Town councillors approved several changes to a document regulating their meetings, during their June 15 gathering.

The change most affecting residents requires anyone who wants to address councillors at a regular council meeting to contact the town office by 10 a.m. on the Thursday before the meeting that follows. Meetings usually happen on Monday evenings or the Tuesday evening following a Monday statutory holiday.

People who wanted to address council had been able to make an appointment as late as 10 a.m. on the Friday preceding the meeting.

Amendments to the town's procedure bylaw also include a requirement that administration staff circulate the agenda and related documentation for that meeting to councillors by noon on the preceding Thursday, rather than the preceding Friday.

Changes also add that in-camera meetings -- those restricted to councillors and invited guests, such as people who want to buy town property or sell property to the town and which the procedure bylaw hadn't mentioned -- must follow regular meetings.

A definition of in-camera meeting also joins the bylaw.

And councillors officially learned that the town's share of provincial revenue sharing would total over $807,000, up about $66,000 from last year.

The province distributes one percentage point of sales tax receipts to municipalities, allotting it based on their populations. Communities must abide by certain regulations to receive their shares.

Also, councillors learned that work to line sewer stacks at the civic centre wasn't yet finished because existing stacks are of different sizes.

Work didn't seem "as easy as" company officials expected, recreation director Kelli Emmons said.

Emmons also said that underground sprinkler lines in Kinsmen Park, that were damaged during the construction of the Kid Kare building, hadn't been repaired yet.