ATHABASCA — Athabasca County Councillors will gather in their chambers for the first regular council meeting of the month April 9, with two motions and two bylaws on the agenda for consideration.
During the March 28 meeting, Coun. Gary Cromwell submitted two notice of motions for consideration and discussion on April 9. The first notice was for a motion to direct admin to explore the viability of live streaming committee of the whole meetings; currently, the county livestreams and records only their regular council meetings, though committee of the whole meetings are open to the public.
The second motion from Cromwell to be considered is another request for admin to report on the cost and feasibility of implementing live typing of motions during streams of meetings to increase accessibility and ease of following proceedings.
Councillors will also have the option of giving third and final reading to an amending bylaw for the Fees for Planning and Development legislation. First and second readings of the bylaw were passed during the March 12 regular meeting, and changes to the bylaw include clarifying language and a switch to a model used by neighbouring municipalities.
Per the request for decision prepared by director of Community and Protective Services Christa Wilkinson, Athabasca County will implement the system used by Westlock and Thorhild counties to determine the natural resource extraction fee, if third reading is passed. According to Wilkinson’s report, the model currently used can result in high dollar amounts for fees.
Another bylaw amendment is also on the agenda for councillor consideration — the county received a request to rezone a chunk of land south of Breynat from an agricultural district to a campground commercial district.
According to another discussion report by Wilkinson, the applicant is looking to expand an existing campground that was in place before the implementation of the campground commercial district in the county’s land use bylaw.
If councillors give first reading to the land use bylaw amendment, a public hearing will be scheduled before second and third readings can be given.
The Athabasca County Council meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. April 9 at the county administrative building. Meetings are open to the public, and can be watched via the livestream recording on the county’s YouTube page. The agenda for the meeting can be viewed here.
