ESTERHAZY — Esterhazy residents have been receiving letters in the mail about the new digital water meters, and Waterworks Consultant Andrew Hickey updated council about the coming change to the Metercorp smart meters.
“One change in particular, they had planned on using the flour mill as a secondary point for the radio receiving station but it cannot be used, as it is a historical site,” he said during Esterhazy Town Council’s regular meeting on Sept. 11. “What we’re going to do instead is, by the end of the month, we’re going to have two antenna attached to the top of the water tower here, one for everyday use and then a backup.”
There are currently 400 meters at Metercorp’s Calgary warehouse, destined for Esterhazy with the rest coming soon.
“When we signed the contract with them, they immediately put a request in for a sufficient amount of meters to cover our needs,” explained Mayor Grant Forster. “It’s a logistical thing; they don’t have space to store 1,200 meters, they can handle 400 so they’ll ship those 400 out.”
The projected completion date for the water meter changeover is Dec. 20, and Metercorp will be holding a public information meeting soon to answer questions from the public.
“We’re going to have them come out and talk about the process of what’s required for people to get their meter changed,” Forster said. “And stress the fact that this is not optional, this is a requirement.”
Returning officers will be paid hourly
A question many municipalities are likely revisiting in the months leading up to the November election is what returning officers ought to receive as monetary compensation for their services.
“The last time that we changed the rates was in 2012, so we needed to update the wages for those positions for the election,” Forster explained.
Under the new rates, the returning officer will be paid $30 per hour, Deputy Returning Officer will receive $25 per hour, and the poll clerk will earn $20 per hour.
“If you get somebody that’s giving up their day, you want to make sure that it’s worth their while,” Forster said.
Third reading on Atwater fire bylaw
The Town has been updating their fire agreements for the past few months and officially gave third reading to Bylaw 787-24, which is the fire protection agreement with the Village of Atwater. Services provided will not change, but an annual flat rate will be applied.
“Because they are such a small community now, we basically went with a flat rate of $500 and we’ll provide them with fire services for the year,” Forster said.
The idea to update fire agreements came out of a regional fire board meeting in the spring.
“We’ve been doing that with the two big RMs and all the communities around,” Forster said. “We’ve been upgrading our bylaws and our agreements, so it’s just part of the whole process.”
Temporary reps for Langenburg board
For the next couple of months, representation from Esterhazy at the Langenburg and District Activity Centre Board will rotate between council members. The board had requested an official representative be named from council, but that decision will happen after the election.
“Councillor [Earl] Nickell was our board member, and they have in their bylaws that you’re only allowed to serve a finite amount of time,” Forster explained. “It didn’t coincide with the election, so he had to drop off the board. So that was leaving us with a with a vacancy for the Town of Esterhazy on the board.”
Councillor Maggie Rowland will attend the Board’s next meeting, and a future councillor will be officially appointed after the November election.
Traffic and speed concern
Residents have been voicing their concern over the amount and speed of traffic at the intersection of James Street and Highway 22, and the issue made its way onto last week’s council agenda.
“It’s a busy corner for kids and everything else,” Forster agreed. “We have vehicles coming in that honestly don’t slow down until they’re well into town and we’ve got young kids trying to cross there to go to school. It’s a concern.”
For now, Public Works is going to assess the area to find out exactly what sort of mitigation effort ought to be in place.
“We are going to put up a pedestrian corridor there,” confirmed Forster. “How we manage to make it happen is for Public Works to figure out because it is quite a wide street.”
The general plan is to establish a signed corridor with lighting to indicate the crosswalk.
