The Highway 55 and 34th Street intersection saw nine non-animal collisions between 2007 and 2011, according to data provided by Alberta Transportation to Town of Athabasca chief administrative officer (CAO) Ryan Maier.
In comparison, submitted Maier at a town council meeting last Tuesday, 52 collisions occurred at Highway 881 and 101st Street in downtown Lac La Biche in the same window; Highway 28 and Highway 831 by Waskatenau saw 24 collisions; Highway 2 and Main Street in Slave Lake saw 43 collisions; and Highway 28 and Highway 41 in downtown Bonnyville saw 33 collisions.
Town councillor George Hawryluk noted the collisions at the intersection of Highway 55 and 34th Street in the five-year period included “three injury collisions resulting in five injuries and seven property damage-only collisions.”
“In a nutshell, it’s not as bad as it seems to be, or as it looks, compared to other intersections in other places,” said Hawryluk.
A motion was passed to accept the data as information.
Administration suggested to council that the $622 iPads the town purchased for council use in 2011 could be resold to departing council members for $173 per unit.
The town purchased iPads to go paperless with council agendas and other documentation.
A contract IT provider for the town suggested the average useful lifespan of the devices is three years (36 months). Currently, the iPads have been used for 26 months.
Town of Athabasca Mayor Roger Morrill questioned whether the tablets really have to be relinquished so easily — whether they are still useful and can be passed on to new council members.
Maier said the iPads can be restored to their factory defaults.
Hawryluk said he had done some research and believed $173 was an unfair price and the used iPads should be offered for cheaper. He suggested a new council should be allowed to acquire new tablets and not secondhand ones.
He also said the existing tablets should be given to seniors in a local seniors home for them to play games with; councillor Lionel Cherniwchan suggested seniors will probably have difficulty manipulating the small icons on the touch screen.
Powell said she believed the $173 figure was about fair based on the anticipated depreciation of the devices.
Evans suggested new councillors should have the chance to choose which mechanisms they adopt — some may not even want to use iPads, she said.
Cherniwchan said the town is “a $6.5-million corporation, and we’re sitting here discussing nickel and dime stuff.” He said after years of service to the town, he shouldn’t have to fork out $173 to take his nameplate and iPad home.
“My motion was that we get to keep them as a ‘thank you very much for your service, and here’s an obsolete iPad,’” said Cherniwchan.
“The number of years I drove down and claimed no mileage to go to meetings …” said Cherniwchan.
Council voted in favour of the motion.
“Obsolete for the obsolete,” said Morrill.
Council passed a motion to move the Nov. 4 public hearing on rezoning an Athabasca property to Nov. 5 to coincide with the regular town council meeting.
The town received a request for a compliance certificate for the property at 4902-50 Ave. — the Husky gas station.
Under current zoning, that property cannot have a gas bar; town council plans to rezone it as “general commercial,” which lists gas bar as a permitted use.
Maier confirmed Alberta Transportation, “after many months of negotiating … has agreed to cover the entire cost of the utility relocation that was completed as part of the 813/55 interchange.”
The CAO said pipework required relocating, and the 2011 funding agreement did not originally cover 100 per cent of the construction costs.
Maier said Alberta Transportation determined it could cover the entire cost, rather than leaving the town with having to potentially fork out as much as $130,000 or, as later determined, as little as $15,000 — a huge margin the town no longer need be concerned about.
