The Vermilion Town Council convened on September 17 for a longer meeting than September 3, clocking in at just over two hours. Deputy Mayor Joshua Rayment opened the session at 6 p.m., with Councillor Rob Snow and Councillor Kevin Martin requesting additions to the agenda, including discussions on Emergency Disaster Planning and the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) position. Other topics added included the Alberta Health Advisory Committee and an in-camera legal contract discussion. Once amended, the agenda was approved.
Councillor Kevin Martin moved to approve the minutes from the September 3 council meeting. The motion was carried.
Public commentary followed, with a resident addressing concerns about the airport, new residential lots, and the ball diamonds.
One of the main topics of the evening was the Housing Needs Assessment and Gap Analysis presented by Gary Gordon from Gordon & Associates Consulting. The presentation provided a comprehensive look at Vermilion’s housing market and gaps, particularly in addressing the needs of families, seniors, and individuals across the housing continuum. Gordon emphasized, “ The housing continuum goes from, temporary emergency shelter-type things to permanent market housing and that includes everything in between. The purpose isn’t necessarily to ensure that everything exists within a community, but to identify gaps along the continuum so you know the type of need that exists.”
He then explained the benefits of having an assessment completed, “The assessment can be used to help with things like developing and designing. Local responsive actions too address identifying needs and gaps, so things like policy and program responses. It is also used to help facilitate partnerships to assemble resources required to address some of the housing needs and it can also be used in developing future business cases, for capital funding or financing requests that may come about from the assessment.”
During the 40-minute presentation, Gordon outlined the role of a housing needs assessment in helping the town develop responsive actions. He highlighted two crucial next steps for the council: creating a strategic housing plan and engaging the public to ensure awareness of the gaps and the town’s approach to mitigating them. “I would strongly recommend doing a communications plan so that residents are aware of the housing needs and gaps and the action plan to address them,” Gordon suggested. This would include monitoring progress and regularly reporting back to the community.
Gordon also encouraged Vermilion to explore opportunities for federal funding to support housing initiatives, referencing the government’s focus on increasing housing stock.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of the Federal Government’s initiatives around trying to build more housing. There is money available if municipalities want to take more action in terms of trying to change the housing stock, etc,” said Gordon.
The full Housing Needs Assessment and Gap Analysis is available for public review on the Town of Vermilion’s website at https://vermilion.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/139116/?preview=142150
Moving on to other agenda items, Councillor Kevin Martin initiated discussions on amending Bylaw 3-2010, which governs cemetery regulations. Councillor Whitlock raised concerns regarding double burials, with Interim CAO Mike van der Torre clarifying that families holding deeds for double burials would have their rights protected, adding, “We can’t take away their right of what they have already purchased because it is a legal deed, so it doesn’t need to be in the Bylaw as they are protected already.” Both the second and third readings of the bylaw amendment were passed.
In other updates, Interim CAO van der Torre shared a letter from Minister Ric McIver, announcing $500,000 worth of grant funding for fire services training from Alberta Municipalities. Vermilion will collaborate with nearby towns and counties to maximize training opportunities.
Interim CAO van der Torre said they will be working together with the chief on that. Deputy Mayor Rayment questioned, “Is this a first-come first-serve basis, and do we need to hurry up and get this in.” van der Torre replied,” I don’t know the specifics on it as I was just given it before the meeting, but I will look into it.”
In regards to the addition of the Town’s Emergency Disaster Plan which was added Councillor Robert Snow had questions surrounding tabletop scenarios and annual drills for the Town’s Emergency Disaster Plan. Interim Chief Administrative Officer Michael van der Torre discussed a live scenario happening in the next year and mentioned that all Town employees are taking a Basic Emergency Management course currently.
As the meeting continued, Councillor Martin introduced a motion to move forward with recruiting a new CAO, as Interim CAO van der Torre has been managing multiple roles. The council approved contract negotiations with the Vogel Group to assist with the search, with an estimated cost of around $30,000.
Councillor Pulyk said there should be, “A friendly amendment to that for the public’s knowledge as well as identifying the Vogel Group, how much money we’re expecting to put into this. I mean the motion is a great start, but it’s kind of open-ended. I think we need a dollar figure to so I would recommend that we set a value. I believe most headhunters are going around $30,000 plus any additional expenses under approval so if we could include that into the motion.”
Van der Torre noted that everyone should be aware that it’s not the actual contract value and that it could exceed or it could come in less than that as there is other disbursements with these companies that they charge cost plus.”
All committee report minutes were accepted as information.
For more details on the meeting and the Housing Needs Assessment, visit the Town of Vermilion’s official site.
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