Hanna town council
The Hanna Elks Lodge representatives presented a cheque for $2700 to council members at the regular Hanna town council meeting on Tues., Jan. 12.
The Hanna Elks Lodge have been providing funds since 2001 to allow the Town to provide free public skating at the arena.
Fibre optics pitch to council
David Skabar of AXIA FibreNet made a presentation to council in hopes that there is sufficient interest from the Town of Hanna to proceed with installation of fibre infrastructure.
ATCO power outages
CAO Kim Neill reported that during the power outages Hanna experienced in mid-December, the Town set up heated reception centres to host people in the fire hall, parks shop, old town office and the Visitor
Information Centre which all have the ability to be powered up using generators.
However, Neill reported, the Town discovered that the generator supplied by Special Areas was a single phase generator that did not work as anticipated at the community centre.
Administration is investigating the cost of a new/used generator that will have the ability to handle single phase and three phase facilities so it has enough capacity to run whichever building the Town needs in emergency situations.
Climate change task force
Administration has been active on the newly established Climate Change Task Force spearheaded by Cactus Corridor Economic Development Corporation with representation from the Town of Hanna and Special Areas.
The goal of the task force is to be proactive and work with the province and industry to accomplish two objectives.
First, to understand the implications of the new provincial climate change policy on the Town of Hanna and surrounding area and secondly, to work with the province and industry on new potential industry opportunities.
Marriage and Family Therapy program increasing services
Gwen Snell, Director of Community Services reported to council that the Hanna Marriage and Family Therapy program will be increasing services with an additional two days per month for a total of six days monthly.
The increased time was needed due to long waiting lists which have been experienced since June of 2015.
The Hanna Agricultural Society indicated that Special Areas will contribute $3,000 annually for three years towards the program.
Additional funding partners are being sought to ensure that the program remains sustainable.
Mondays, most fire calls
Surprisingly, Mondays had the highest percentage (23) of fire calls in the Hanna area reported Director Fire Chief Adrian Mohl during his presentation to council.
Equally surprising was that Saturdays had the least amount of calls with only eight per cent.
The hours between noon and 6 p.m. had 52 per cent of the calls.
There were 87 calls last year which is up from 67 calls in 2014 and down from 94 in 2013.
Of those 87 calls, 31 were in Hanna and 56 were out of town, which includes mutual aid and Special Areas, even though there were no mutual aid calls last year.
Their top three calls, which make up 70 per cent of their total calls were false alarms at 26 per cent, motor vehicle calls at 23 per cent and grass fires at 21 per cent.
With such a high percentage of calls being false alarms, council discussed implementing a ‘penalty fee’ for repeat false alarm offenders.
Mohl stated that there had been no repeat offenders for false alarms and false alarms can include calls where carbon monoxide detectors have gone off, however no actual fires were on site.
Mohl also stated that he would hate to see the public not make emergency calls in fear of being penalized for false alarm fines.
Council members agreed to revisit the issue at a later time if there were clear incidents of repeat offenders. No fines were set at this time.
