OUTLOOK - The town council of Outlook met for a regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday night, November 8. Present was all of Council; Sharon Bruce, Bob Stephenson, Justin Turton, Kyle McLeod, Ryan Husband, and Kevin Grotheim, as well as Mayor Maureen Weiterman, Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Trew, and Assistant CAO Rachel Sillers.
The meeting was broadcast live on the Town of Outlook's Facebook page.
A number of topics and items were discussed, including the following highlights.
Public Hearings
Discussing the public hearing held in the court room of the town hall one night earlier, Mayor Weiterman said she was impressed with the amount of people both in attendance and who watched the meeting online, owing to the public's vested interest in what's going on in their community.
"I was very happy with the turnout of people, and very impressed with the number of people who watched online," she said. "People are invested; they're concerned, and they're invested, so that's good to know. We want our community members to be invested."
"I think Council should be applauded," added CAO Trew. "From my own personal point of view, I think it was very successful. It got a lot of turnout, and democracy is a very important thing to me, and I am very proud that there was a huge participation in democracy last night."
Minutes of the hearing were accepted by Council, with Sillers being commended for providing the minutes of the public hearing.
Bylaws
Council then entered into a discussion surrounding three bylaws, with two of them up for second reading; Bylaw 10(2023) Animal Keeping and Bylaw 11(2023) Cemetery Operations.
Discussing Bylaw 10, Trew said that he hadn't heard any feedback on the bylaw after the first reading, aside from questioning that was produced as a result of reading a meeting recap in the pages of this newspaper. Mayor Weiterman said that she had a discussion with someone about birds in relation to the bylaw, specifically about the sex of birds, ie: chickens, hens, roosters.
Councillor Grotheim commented that he didn't agree with the notion that someone could raise birds on their property, but then couldn't butcher them on the same property.
"You're saying that on an acreage, if you have three chickens and you're raising them to eat, you can't butcher them on your acreage?" he asked.
"In the Town of Outlook," specified Trew.
"Well, yeah," said Grotheim.
"That's what that says," said Trew.
"Well, I don't know if I agree with that," said Grotheim.
Grotheim asked why if livestock are allowed to live there, why couldn't they also die there.
Trew asked if some of the language should be removed in that regard, and Grotheim said it should, to which Councillor Husband agreed with him.
Touching on some of the other language in the bylaw, described as "too intensive" by Trew, it was said that perhaps the bylaw needed to go back and be retooled, with some of the language removed where necessary.
As well, keeping on the theme of animals, Trew said that someone had approached him asking if maybe the Town needed to create something that restricted the feeding of deer in the community, as it was said that someone in the community actually had a small dog that was killed by a deer. Trew said that he's spoken with the Resort Village of Candle Lake, which has such a bylaw discouraging the feeding of deer.
"As much as we think we're doing them a favor, it's not good for the deer," said Weiterman, touching on humans purposely feeding the animals.
Trew and Council wondered if some educational material would be beneficial in the community, telling people of the do's and don't's in this regard.
Council then passed the second reading of Bylaw 11(2023) Cemetery Operations.
Reports of Administration, Staff and/or Committees Requiring Decision
In discussing the award of a tender for upgrading the town hall complex controls, it was said that it was high time to replace the current system in place at the town hall, which at this point is over 55 years old (west end added on in 1982). Council approved the purchase of a new control system in the 2023 capital budget at $185,000. Two responses to the tender came in, the first being from Johnson Controls at $157,309.28 net of GST, and Delta Controls coming in at $157,872, also net of GST.
After some discussion, a motion was made and passed to award the tender for the town's H-Vac controls project to the Delta system.
New Business
Council set the dates for their regular meetings in 2024, as the current calendar year is nearing its end.
