Due to an equipment issue, the first 41 minutes of this month’s meeting of the RM of Rosedale Council are missing from this footage. That missing time included the adoption of the October 2023 financial statements and accounts, and first reading of Bylaw 4-2023 on Organisational Structure, which amended Schedule B to remove names of committee designates. A public hearing was held regarding the Conditional Use application involving an Aggregate Quarry request by Nathan Petch on NW 30-15-16W. A motion resulting from that hearing can be seen later in the meeting.

Council held a discussion around how it disseminates grant funding to user groups within the municipality, including the VLT funds that it receives from the province each June. Every municipality receives VLT revenue on a per capita basis along with a set base payment.  Currently projects are generally evaluated as they are received, and while each Councilllor has a pool of money from which they can contribute to requests, generally they all chip in regardless of the actual location of the group or project within the municipality. Going forward they are looking at developing a plan that would ask for requests by a certain deadline each year so they can all be budgeted for together. This is not expected to go into effect until 2025.

A small procedural change will be seen going forward, as the municipality plans to attach a motion to each talking point at the meetings so that they will all appear in the minutes. What this means for residents is that a review of the meeting minutes will show them everything that was discussed, if not the details of the discussion, regardless of whether it resulted in a Council decision or not.

Another big topic on the agenda was around the creation of subdivisions in the municipality. They have seen several requests lately for simple subdivisions for uses that they felt might be better served by not going through the entire subdivision process. The policies that govern it come from the planning district and not the municipality itself so that change is not under their control, however there is some indication that it’s something that’s being considered. The risk of abuse seems low because land in the RM is not under the same pressure for housing subdivisions as, for instance, the green belt in Toronto.

A delegation was received regarding problems related to beaver dams, something we’ve seen several times at meetings around the area. Previously there had been a Provincial bounty program for beavers but that program expired in March of 2023. The municipality is looking at ways to reinsitute the program to help reduce the water problems being caused by excessive beaver activity. It’s important to note that beavers can only be culled by persons with a specific license and permit to do so.

Several motions came as a result of an in-camera session, including the possible closure of the Elk Ranch Landfill and enforcement of the water policy regarding trenching.

Other items discussed included access to the archives to search for misfiled records and possible digitization of the records, a new animal control officer, an update on the bridge rehabilitation project, and support for wolf mitigation.