Red Deer Minute: Cell Service, Hospice Beds, and Residuals Plant Completion

Red Deer Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Red Deer politics

This Week In Red Deer:

• There will be a meeting of the Red Deer & District Family & Community Support Services Board on Tuesday at 5:00 pm. The Board will discuss its annual regional project, which will focus on “ways of building resilience through empathy and compassion towards others, with a local, neighbourhood focus to dampen the challenges around affordability and transportation.”
  
  
• The Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary Committee will meet on Wednesday. No time or agenda is available for this meeting.
  
  
• A full city-wide fire ban is in effect due to dry conditions and high temperatures. Open fires using charcoal, briquettes, or wood, as well as open sources of open flame like tiki torches, are not allowed within city limits. The ban is in effect until further notice.

Last Week In Red Deer:

• City Council authorized an additional $250,000 for the completion of a residuals plant, a facility that removes chemically coated sediments before returning treated waste-water back to the river. The plant was being built by order of the Province in order to maintain water quality and lessen impacts to fish populations. The $32-million project has gone slightly over budget, but the extra cash will come out of a utilities reserve fund so that no additional tax burden will fall on Red Deerians.
  
  
• Councillor Lee’s Notice of Motion regarding cell phone service was unanimously accepted at last week’s City Council meeting. The Notice of Motion called for the Mayor’s Office to write to telecommunications providers and impress upon them the urgent need for better cell service in the city. Council also agreed that a process should be put in place for planning future neighourhoods in order to make sure cell service is adequate. The new Evergreen neighbourhood is being built further north of where problems currently exist. Complaints most commonly come from Clearview, Clearview Ridge, Garden Heights, Timberlands, and Timberstone.
  
  
• Ten new resident beds arrived at Red Deer Hospice Society, the result of a fundraising campaign seeking to help the hospice replace their original beds. The campaign raised the $150,000 needed to get the items, which are already in use. The hospice was also able to purchase a wish list item - a cuddle bed to accommodate family members.

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