Field Town Hall Meeting May 16, 2016

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Field Town Hall Meeting May 16th 2016

Kathryn Cameron: Welcome – good turn out.

Change in FCC – Craig stepping down as Chair; Kathryn has taken on role as chair and Claudia as secretary until August.

  • FRAA

Great events over the last few months – thanks Tyra and Kat for the hard work. Great Easter potluck and egg hunt!

Upcoming events.

May 29th (Sunday) – Spring fling – A welcome all the summer staff from the local businesses and a welcome to the summer season. Flint will be the DJ

June 19th (Sunday) – Garden Party – Maggie is organizing. Please contact if you would like to be a host . Progressive Party that moves around town. Theme is pink and purple in honor of Miki Morency.

June 25th (Saturday) – School Celebration – Check the village of Field Facebook page for the schedule of events. Doors will open at 1pm and at 2pm there will be a presentation along the same lines as the school Christmas concert. Everyone is welcome to contribute. Please feel free to contact Madame Rebecca – expect the ‘concert’ to be around 2 hours long. Lots of former students, pictures, etc. Then move to the community hall for potluck – bring salads and veggies and deserts. Meat will be provided. Does anyone have school pictures from when you were at school here? Hall will be decorated like a school classroom.

Sue La rose is choreographing a performance for all former teachers

June 29th (Wednesday) – Emerald Lake is renting the Community Hall for a Band and Dance.

July 1st (Friday) – Canada day – $440 grant – anyone have any ideas? Ambulance puts on breakfast and FFR puts on lunch. Face painting. Any people and businesses in town who want to have a float be here at the town hall AT 11AM.

A yoga retreat took place over the weekend – great revenue.

Enola Nygren interested in doing a yoga retreat for the community, maybe in August.

Friends of Yoho is renting the hall June 23rd and 24th – for train event

  • June 6th AGM- will be held at the picnic tables 5pm – wiener roast in the plaza.
  • July 1st – Historic Walking tour start for summer – Thursdays and Tuesdays 8pm
  • July and August – full moon walks
  • July 18th Parks Day – Sweets and S’mores
  • Will send out an email with a list of all events.
  • FCC

Thanks to the Highways team that came in and cleaned up around town.

Yoho Trading Post opened on May 13th under the same management. Opening was delayed from expected May 1st due to pump installation issues. Still sharing Burgess Shale accommodation with guides. Unsure what the plan with the property is – still in overhold. PC is now actively looking into it. Concerns from the community about being closed for the winter as it made Field looked derelict. What influence can PC have over ensuring the gas station is open over the winter? Can we give an incentive?

Field Fire and Rescue Society is to take over care of school playground – in communication with the school. Question from Ellen re: liability – Sally is absent, but will inform community once she returns as to whether the FCC insurance would cover it. It does currently cover events held at school etc. Ellen has concerns about liability as the school is leasing the land from Parks Canada.

  • Treasurer’ Report

Sally is away – she will have a report for the next town meeting which is on June 27th.

  • RCMP

Absent

  • Townsite Manager – Ellen Francis

Townsites team primarliy based out of LL – we are growing (after shrinking); bringing in new development officers. Hopefully this will help us get through the projects proposed for the Field Unit.

At June meeting would be a good time for FCC to talk about housing etc. Wants to understand in general what some longer term projects are in the community – discuss next meeting.

Sheila – waste water management – has looked into concerns re: security breach – we have reviewed with PC security consultants – who have released a preliminary report currently under review.

Solid waste – doing some work (no Field hanges) – looking at how charges are pulled together – might be something that comes up at the utility board meeting (could be pricing changes; increase or decrease)

Emergency plans for Field – hasn’t been updated in about 10 years. Looking to update and add any missing pieces – PC will be looking at possible changes and how to communicate it to community. Should be discussed by fall.

Trains – whistling – what do people think? Ellen – if we don’t want the whistle to sound it would require PC to build a crossing structure – which will have a cost associated. PC will not pursue unless we hear about the whistling. Kathryn – why do we have different whistles – e.g. short, short, long, short. What is their protocol? Can we go with the minimum.   Karla – says relates to Morse code indicating the Queen is present. CP has had a safety person come through (same as Golden Canyon issue). Solution may be noisier than what we have – e.g., bells. At this stage Ellen is going to investigate minimum requirements.

  • Highway Service Centre – Mike Vanderveen

Will be replacing the damaged bins tomorrow! Just need to get pads in . Q re: how it happened – plough driver hit it at slow speed. Elaine Lemieux will install information stickers. Highways will be paying for the bins, not the residents of Field as per usual.

Phase one painting of lines done

Lots more sweeping of shoulders to do.

Dave – signs on the highway that bear the brunt of the winter weather – are they being replaced? Some – Highways just deals with regulatory signs. Other signs belong to the Field Unit.

  • Visitor Experience

Michael St Denis absent. Ellen Francis speaking on his behalf.

Yoho Valley sign replacement will be completed this summer. New signs will also be installed at the Lake O’Hara staging area.

Request for Illegal camping to be formally reported as anecdotally PC cannot do anything. PC is looking for alternatives to the current formal system which is to report to Banff Dispatch. At this stage continue with this until we have an alternative. Put up a poster on community board so everyone knows how to report.

  • Resource Conservation

No report

  • Presentation Highway Service Centre

Please see attached slideshow with information on Highways infrastructure investment program.

GUEST: Marnie DiGiandomenico

Main points. No delays expected in July an August. Work should start Early June. Major delays will be posted one week in advance on Parks Website.

PC website has a construction link – with information re: work, closures expected delays etc. PC is hoping to get message out to visitors to really plan ahead. If you are not on the mailing list would like to be added let Elaine Lemieux know. Mountain Park website covers the entire Mt Park infrastructure projects – not just highways – includes campground closures etc. Can be a day or two behind because of translation required. But 511 and Drive BC should be immediate for up to date information.

If there are questions that are not being addresses – please let Lindsey know so that it can be addressed.

Rock scaling:

Will have to schedule 90-minute delays about a week in advance. Subject to changes and delays e.g. CP rail and unexploded dynamite) 90 minute is worst case scenario – should be about 60 minutes, but 90 minutes covers unanticipated delays

No rock scaling in JULY AND AUGUST.

Design for the next stretch of highway twinning has a two year widow to complete intermediate design of the twinning of the highway. At this stage there is no confirmed ending as looking into safest end point (could be as far as the Spiral Tunnels)

  • Assets

Monarch culvert project: We replaced a couple of culverts already – replacing a 3rd one – took longer to get through the design phase – will hopefully done by late fall.

Replace bunkhouse with accommodation directly within the community of Field: Was originally set up to be done out of Calgary office – but trying to repatriate back to field unit. Kurt Devlin will hopefully be project lead – bringing it back will have more community consultation. Will have 24 beds. Multi building structure.

Smaller projects – (many small projects not approved) – has doubled housing maintenance budget and hopefully we can chip away at small projects.

Field Fire Hall: Roof issues – wants to get FFR department to look at Radium’s new Fire

hall to see what works, and to think about new plans for the Fire Hall – a new structure.

Superintendent’s home: Part of a green pilot project Kurt Devlin and Karen Lassen are project coordinators   – new green technologies, more affordable to heat. Hopefully will be operational before the winter hits.

Standing maintenance of the bridges: Vehicle bridges – ongoing.

1st and 2nd avenue drainage: Put a lot of time and brain power into trying to understand the problem. Contractor who did the work had some ideas – execution didn’t work. Put in time monitoring – what water is ending up where. Drain seems to be working well. In fall water is still pooling but not going into the culvert. Wants to have an anecdotal sit down conversation – e.g. Chuck working up there and things got worse. If anyone thinks that they have any value/information to add. One evening sit down over coffee potential option. Dave Allen is going to try and corral people and come up with a time over the next couple of weeks – please contact Dave to arrange a time if you are impacted.

Kathryn – Could we get a hydrologist to come and have a look? Mt Dennis issue related? Travis – Clearing of clay barrier seems to be when there was an issue (poorly preforming ditch removed) Monitoring phase trying to get to complexity of the issue – no historical analysis

Q – when was the original waterworks decommissioned( CP’s for the water tower)? Not known

Mt Dennis Slope Stabilization has been far more successful; seems to be working. Largest concern – slide that would choke up cemetery bridge and cause flooding. Lots of deadfall in the creek – has its own difficulties. Travis has been on a couple of site visits. PC has challenged their network. A couple of clay slopes on top of shale – constantly in migration downhill. Monitoring network – only put in these two clay fields. Have forced the to put on in the ‘tree island’. Have put identified monitoring network and will be monitoring monthly until November. Measuring stake movement. Dave is on site with contractors. Any changes PC will let us know. As of yet no concerns. This will allow to see changes from frozen ground in winter– to wet ground in summer– to dry ground in October. The emergency dewatering of slope (with two pits): upper one is functioning – surface run off – filling up. Currently not much if any water is flowing through lower pit. But did catch some water. Pipe itself has receive some damage – had discussions with consultant – toed into river – to avoid drop and erosion. Also discussed hazardous trees – will have to monitor further – as it sits right now might provide ore protection. Maintenance program will be kept up. Appreciate any feedback/concerns – more data always helpful. This is the monitoring phase (after emergency phase) will then see what else needs to be done.

Can we communicate that to community? Travis will come chat/Dave can come chat/ Ellen can pass on, even to know status quo.

  • Field Fire and Rescue Department

Callouts:

Fire:1 at Emerald Lake Lodge maintenance facility

MVA:3

Hazmat:1

Emerald Lake Fire:

Cause determined as propane explosion from faulty garage heater. No fatalities. ~1 miillion dollars damage. 2 structures saved, the waste water sewage plant and bell hut. 8 members responded from Field Fire. 18 hours total call out time. Lake Louise Fire assisted for 4 hours. BCAS, RCMP, Canwest Propane, and Parks Canada aquatics specialist.

Training:

Spring CSRD training up and running. Members will be attending: Exterior Fire, Strategy and Tactics; Apparatus Pump Operator; Wild Land Fire (with Parks Canada); Structural Protection Unit; Special CP rail, crude oil by rail training in Denver Colorado; In house training concentrating on structure fires; Live burn in Nicholson.

Membership:

19 Fire Fighters; 2 former members returning for the summer: Meghan Beamish and Tina Deenik

2 new members; Maggie and Hollie finished recruit training.

Equipment:

Received new Ford 550 with old rescue box March 1.

All trucks in full service …yippee!

FCC: Thanks for all the work you do.

Ellen: In response to ” Has there been any more thought on the Fulltime Fire Chief Position?” There have been tweaks to the agreement from past years – to stay within the budget that we have. Outside of the budget is all of the infrastructure. For this year things will remain status quo but will look at it in the future alongside emergency service planning. Concern regarding burn out for volunteers – and at the moment the duties of the Chief is far more than is reasonable for a volunteer that works full-time and has a family.

  • Round Table

Reschedule FUB from June 15 to June 22nd