Mountain View County (MVC) council has a number of priority items on the agenda for 2018, including bringing the municipality into line with the updated provincial Municipal Government Act (MGA), says Reeve Bruce Beattie.
In a Gazette interview, Beattie outlined some of the big items on the county's calendar for 2018.
"The first thing on the list is the whole new MGA and how it is going to impact what we are going to be doing in the coming year," said Beattie.
"The act requires us to have ICFs (intermunicpal cooperation frameworks) in place with all our towns plus the five rural municipalities that border on our county. There is a lot of work to be done as part of those agreements."
The county will be working with the Town of Sundre to reach a new agreement, he said.
"We are in mediation with Sundre and that will take some effort to try to reach an agreement, not only the development of the gravel pits but also reaching a new ICF and IDP (inter-municipal development plan)," he said.
"We've got an interim agreement in place for funding recreation, but it follows the pattern of 2017 and didn't incorporate the increase that other towns and the village (Cremona) received in 2018."
One of the requirements of the updated MGA is for municipalities to update codes of conduct for councillors, he said.
"We've had a code of conduct that councillors always signed and we thought we were good to go, but it turns out that some of the requirements within the new MGA are more specific than what is in our existing code of conduct," he said.
"We are waiting to see what the outcome of that is going to be. We will be dealing with that later in the year."
The county will also be looking at environmental project funding, he said.
"We are going to be getting an overall look at what exactly we are doing in the environment and all the different programs," he said. "We will be trying to bring them together to see where our funds are going, whether it's an appropriate amount and whether we should be dedicating a specific amount to environment programs similar to what we do with recreation and culture.
"I think it is something we will be talking about. I would like to see us get some certainty around the funding in that area."
Preserving agricultural land will remain a priority for the county in 2018, he said.
"The whole land use issue is a work in progress," he said. "It's an ongoing challenge to make sure we have the appropriate rules in place to try to encourage development on land that is not the best suited for agriculture."
Diversifying the county's economy is also an ongoing goal, he said.
"We have our strategic planning session coming up in the end of January, so that's going to be an opportunity for council to look at what is coming up in the coming year," he said.
The county will be working to build relationships with all the new councils in the region, he said.
"The first thing on the list is the whole new MGA and how it is going to impact what we are going to be doing in the coming year."
