Barnwell fire hall progress continues

By Greg Price
Taber Times
gprice@tabertimes.com

Several motions were passed at a special meeting in August involving the public works shop/fire hall project assignment for the Village of Barnwell.

Passed unanimously at the Aug. 5 meeting was the Village of Barnwell being the general contractor for the construction of the public works/fire hall building.

The funding of the project includes $40,000 from the 2017 capital budget (as already approved), $193,000 from MSI Capital Grant Funding as applied for, and the remaining $50,000, if necessary, be funded through either an amendment to the MSI Capital Grant application or funded from capital reserves.

Also carried unanimously was the hiring of a surveyor company to survey the proposed lot for placement of the building and have a soil suitability test done.

The third and final motion that was passed unanimously was to proceed with the construction of the public works/fire hall building and award the contract for the concrete work and the construction of the building to Horizon Contracting, with the option for the village to purchase the building supplies and the electrical contract be awarded to Done Right Electric, pending other quotes to the best plumber and heating contractor.

The Times inquired on the need to call a special meeting on a Saturday morning ahead of Barnwell council’s regular meeting. Regular meetings are normally every third Thursday of the month.

August’s regular meeting was on Aug. 17, less than two weeks after when the special meeting was called.

CAO Wendy Bateman stressed urgency in the building of the public works/satellite fire hall for the M.D. of Taber Regional Fire Service with fall and winter fast approaching.

“When a council only meets once a month, there is the occasion for the need of a special meeting. We have been trying to get the construction of the fire hall going, and we were in limbo until council gave the go ahead and also the contractor who was successful for the bid for the fire hall was willing to start ASAP,” said Bateman in e-mail correspondence to The Times.

“There were still a lot of permits to achieve, so the mayor (Jane Jensen) deemed it prudent to call a special meeting as per MGA Section 194 (1) (a), so the contract could be awarded and we could proceed so that we are well underway before cold weather. We have often found when you have councillors that are in the work force that early Saturday morning meetings work quite well. We did not have any more councillors at the regular meetings in either July or August than we did at the special meeting. I believe in the four years of this reign of council that this was the first special meeting that had to be called.”

Mayor Jane Jensen and councillors Eric Jensen and Christy Lund were present at the special August meeting with CAO Wendy Bateman also present.
Councillors John Neufeld and Darrell Turner were absent from the meeting that lasted 40 minutes, according to the minutes of the special meeting that was on Aug. 5 which started at 9 a.m. in council chambers.