News

In 2018, the City of Cold Lake will spend just under $2.2 million in capital road infrastructure improvements as it moves towards a proactive stance that will keep pace with the condition of the city’s roadways.

“Staff have put a lot of research into the city’s road program and we are starting to see the full benefit of their hard work,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “Maintenance projects are chosen based on what work will best extend the life of the roadways, and this allows the city to get the most mileage possible from our community’s tax dollars.”

Cold Lake, AB – Cold Lake City Council unanimously passed the 2018 Operating and Capital Budgets with just over $53.5 million in total expenditures, forecasting an average municipal tax increase of about 4.8 per cent.

The 2018 operating budget was passed at about $51.4 million, including a transfer to the Capital Budget of about $9.2 million. Inclusive of the transfer, the Capital Budget sits at just over $11.5 million.

“We balanced our city’s priorities of dealing with the pressures of continued growth and an infrastructure deficit, while also providing for the livability of the city,” Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland said. “At the same time, we had to do our best to limit the harm that the government’s new Cold Lake Air Weapons Range arrangement inflicted by cutting $10 million annually. It’s unfortunate that inaccurate information persists surrounding how this new arrangement was made. But we arrived at a well-rounded budget after being blindsided by a massive loss with no meaningful consultation or warning of the magnitude of the impacts. That is a testament to this council’s hard work from orientation straight through the budget process.”

The original Cold Lake Air Weapons Range Agreement, signed by the City of Cold Lake and the Government of Alberta, was brokered to ensure the sustainability of the City of Cold Lake. The agreement stated that: “The parties agree to maintain open and collaborative communications to achieve the principles and objectives setout herein. The parties agree to collaborate on public statements relating to the changes in the municipal boundaries and the revenue sharing agreements….This memorandum may be amended through mutual written agreement of the parties.”

“I don’t think anybody would think it’s reasonable to consider one meeting with the Mayor and one meeting with the CAO an exhaustive consultation process,” Copeland said. “The fact is, we live in the only growing urban centre in the Lakeland and we needed to pass a budget that deals with the challenges a young and growing urban centre faces. We did that as best as we could.”

Cold Lake, AB – City Council is asking the Government of Alberta for some clarity on why little progress seems to have been made on a major oil sands expansion project in the region.

“We have heard that there has been no movement on Imperial’s Cold Lake expansion project in the last year and a half,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “This project is vital to our region, which has been hard hit by the lingering economic downturn. We are asking for the status of the project and what our government can do to help this file along.”

It is the City of Cold Lake’s understanding that Imperial’s Cold Lake expansion project completed its environmental impact assessment in 2015 and has been awaiting regulatory approval since March 2016. Statements of Concern filed with the Alberta Energy Regulator must be dealt with before final approval can be given.

“We’ve heard that no statements of concern have been handled since early 2016, except for a couple that have been withdrawn by the people who filed them,” Copeland said. “With new, high-paying jobs at stake, we find it hard that so little progress could be made on this file. Our council is seeking a deeper understanding of why we are not hearing about any positive progress on this project.”

On Friday, November 17, the City of Cold Lake was notified, without warning or consultation, that it would suffer a $10 million annual reduction to its budget as the Government of Alberta will no longer honour the intent behind the original Cold Lake Air Weapons Range Agreement.

“The City of Cold Lake brokered the original agreement for its sustainability, and yet we were not given the benefit of any meaningful negotiations, consultation or forewarning that our taxpayers would be treated this way through a unilateral decision made by the Minister of Municipal Affairs,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “And yet, despite very strong and public promises from our neighbours that they were not seeking to take anything away from our municipality, this new arrangement has quickly been celebrated. I find it hard to believe how the City of Cold Lake – the largest urban center in the Lakeland, and the only one which continues to see growth in our region – can been treated with such disrespect.”

Although the original agreement outlined the need for collaboration between the City of Cold Lake and the Government of Alberta to transition all municipal revenue from the air weapons range to the city, the city was open for regional collaboration.

Early in 2016, the City of Cold Lake submitted a proposal for a new agreement to Alberta Municipal Affairs that would have respected the original intent of ensuring the city’s sustainability, while also bringing the Town of Bonnyville and the Village of Glendon additional revenue from the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range.

On November 7, one of the City of Cold Lake’s internal IST servers experienced a critical hardware failure, bringing some services down. Affected programs and services relate to some financial functions and some web-based services, which will remain offline until the server is repaired.

While city staff are working with the hardware provider to remedy the situation and resume normal operations as soon as possible, some delays in issuing cheques may be experienced and Citizen Self Service will remain offline until server repairs are completed.

The City of Cold Lake is taking every effort to avoid delays and resume all services in a timely manner.

COLD LAKE, AB – The polling station closed for the Cold Lake 2017 Municipal Election at 8:00 p.m. today, reporting that 1,814 out of 11,170 eligible voters cast a ballot.

The following are the unofficial results for the 2017 Cold Lake municipal election:

Cold Lake, AB – Work on the artificial turf field is underway, beginning with a substantial amount of earthwork to prepare the site.

“There is more top soil to move than expected, but we are hoping to see the earthwork and the site preparation done before freeze-up this year,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “This project has been planned for years and it will be exciting to see it take shape.”

The grandstand will include a building that will house a large team dressing room, four smaller dressing rooms, a concession stand, public washrooms, room for storage, a media and announcers’ room, and two fully equipped multi-purpose rooms.

The project also will include a digital scoreboard as well as an outdoor lighting and audio package. The field itself will be lined for football, soccer, and rugby. It is designed so that the infrastructure for an inflatable dome structure can be added as a possible Phase 2 to the project.

“The possibility of putting a dome over the field was very intriguing, so we designed the facility in a way that this can be considered in the future,” Copeland said. “We’ve heard that enclosed fields in other communities see heavy use by a wide range of recreational groups throughout the year – it’s an option we wanted to keep open.”

Cold Lake, AB – Cold Lake Transit is about to see additional improvements through the Transit Enhancement Sidewalk and Trail Connectivity program.

“With so many residents using Cold Lake Transit on a daily basis, it’s important to make sure that the stops and shelters are accessible and easy to use,” said Mayor Craig Copeland.

Thanks to a successful application under the Government of Alberta’s GreenTRIP grant, the connectivity program covers a few portions of Cold Lake Transit, including new concrete pads at stops with additional shelters, new asphalt trails, and sidewalk construction in high-traffic areas.

“We wanted to enhance the accessibility to make sure the public would have safe and direct access to all current stops, especially where there was no sidewalk or trail,” said Copeland. “As well, we’ll be placing additional shelters at high-traffic stops, giving riders a place to hide from bad weather.”

Concrete pads and shelters are planned to be installed at the Energy Centre; 50 Avenue at 46 Street; JJ Parr; 54 Avenue, and 52 Avenue.

The sidewalk construction will be at 8 Avenue from 13 Street to 12 Street; a continuation of 16 Street from 14 Avenue to 16 Avenue; along 69 Avenue by Tim Horton’s to connect to the Transit Centre, and 57 Street from 50 Avenue to Veteran’s Way.

Cold Lake, AB – After a boost in the budget earlier this year, the Capital Road Improvement Program has taken off for 2017.

“The areas that we focus on are usually streets that see a lot of traffic,” said City of Cold Lake’s Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Nagoya. “We want to keep them up to standard, and the Capital Road Improvement Program gives us the opportunity to prioritize which infrastructure needs resurfacing.”

The Capital Road Improvement Program is governed under a road analytics program, which uses a software that analyzes the surface distress index of roadways and degradation curves to assist in making decisions on pavement resurfacing. This way the life of the asphalt can be extended before the pavement requires total replacement, which is a more costly procedure.

In May, it was announced that with funding from the Basic Municipal Transportation Grant, and the Municipal Sustainability Initiative, an extra $1 million was added to the budget for road improvements, increasing the total to $1.75 million.

Cold Lake, AB – The second annual City-Wide Sale is leading up to be another great success.

With over 140 pins already registered, the sale is on track to be bigger than last year’s debut event. Business pins have been visible since the start of registration, and residential pins will become visible starting on Monday, Aug. 14, so that people can plan their treasure-hunting route for Aug. 19 and 20 when the sale is on.

Last year, the City-Wide Sale brought in shoppers from surrounding areas, as well as many local residents seeking a good deal.

New this year to the sale is the BIZ KID$ Program, bringing young entrepreneurs out to represent their businesses.

“The youth in our community are very outgoing,” said Mayor Craig Copeland. “To see these kids working with mentors and creating a business is phenomenal to see. They should be really proud of their accomplishments.”

The BIZ KID$ Program entrepreneurs will be selling their products and services as part of the yardsale held at the Military Family Resource Centre Society location on 4 Wing, on Aug. 19 and 20.

Cold Lake, AB – Enhancements at Kinosoo Beach continue as a new playground structure has been decided on.

“We have been going through the tenders for the project, and have chosen one that will best fit the new design of the beach and what is popular for children to play on,” said General Manager of Community Services Glenn Barnes.

Blue Imp was awarded the tender for the play structure, which will have a variety of features, including a pebble scramble to climb; two climb-a-walls; a squiggle climb; a triple rail slide which allows two people to slide side-by-side; a wave slide; a panda crawl tube, and more.

The tender also included playgrounds for Imperial Park, Evergreen Park, and Birch Park. The total cost of all the parks is just under $200,000, with the Kinosoo Beach playground coming in at around $75,000.

Cold Lake, AB – At a special council meeting held today, Cold Lake City Council voted to pursue an enhanced policing program that would bring a Police Dog Service to the city.

The enhanced policing initiative, which is supported by the Federal Government and the RCMP, was planned for the 2018 budget. A chance to acquire a police dog and Police Dog Service member at the Cold Lake RCMP Detachment presented itself earlier than expected, however, and the special meeting was called to vote on pursuing the service for 2017.

“We know that these two new members would very much be welcomed at the detachment and within the community,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “We made the decision to bring a police dog team to the area to help ensure the RCMP in our region has a variety of assets available.”

Although the enhancement was planned for 2018, the City of Cold Lake was made aware that a Police Dog Service team will graduate this from the training centre in Innisfail, Alberta and may be available for posting to the Cold Lake detachment. The post would still require final approval by the Federal Government.

RCMP police dogs are used for a wide variety of policing applications. They can search for missing persons, track suspects, search for narcotics, evidence or explosives, and can also be used for community relations and school programs.

While Police Dog Service assets are based out of a given detachment, they are used by the RCMP when and where needed. Prior to council’s decision, the closest Police Dog Service unit was stationed in St. Paul and would come to Cold Lake when needed and available.

Cold Lake, AB – Council voted in favour of an attempt to create a dedicated outdoor facility for the growing sport of pickleball in Cold Lake this construction season.

During Council’s Corporate Priorities Committee meeting on May 16, 2017, council received an update to the Tennis Court Replacement Project (for Ivan Krook Park and Hill Top Park) where this discussion of pickleball originated. A number of emails were sent to the City over concerns that dedicated Tennis Court were being developed in Cold Lake North. 

At the May 16 meeting, council agreed to add four pickleball courts to Hill Top Park and one pickleball court to the Kinosoo Beach. At council’s June 13 Regular Meeting, it was decided that Cold Lake will see an additional eight dedicated pickleball courts developed in the community.

“We’ve received a lot of requests for this facility and have moved money around in the budget to add this project to the 2017 list,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “There is a dedicated and growing group of pickleball players in the city and council identified the need to support this growing sport.”

Cold Lake, AB – The City of Cold Lake has hired a firm to start conceptual plans to see if a suitable new building to house the Lakeland Humane Society (LHS) can be accommodated at its existing location. 

“The Lakeland Humane Society provides a great service to our residents and is very well regarded throughout the region,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “Our community is young and growing, and the society needs help to keep pace with the demand for the services it provides.”

The LHS operates independently of the City of Cold Lake, but provides the city’s pound-keeper services and pet licencing services under contract. The city is responsible for animal control and the enforcement of bylaws that govern the keeping of pets.

In late May, council approved a budget of $22,500 to prepare a site plan for the Lakeland Humane Society at its existing location. JMAA architecture has been retained to create the plans.

The Cold Lake Energy Centre will remain closed tomorrow to accommodate air quality testing before the facility will be reopened.

The City of Cold Lake is aware of the public concern about the amount of tent caterpillars that have been noticed. The city is doing its best to focus on mechanical, rather than chemical, measures of control. This is due to the fact that the most effective chemical solutions involve pesticides that are non-selective, which would result in the destruction of many other species.

Cold Lake, AB – With summer around the corner, City Council addressed the issue of tennis courts and pickleball courts within the city.

“Administration has come up with several options for us to consider on where we want to put down lines,” explained Mayor Craig Copeland. “Ideally, we would like to see a dedicated outdoor pickleball court, but at this time the solution may be to paint pickleball lines onto one of our tennis courts.”

The city budgeted for the replacement/rehabilitation of the existing tennis courts during council’s past budget cycle. The dual tennis courts in the North are being reconstructed as a new facility, while the tennis court in the South will be getting a new surface.

“Because the court in the South is built on top of a water reservoir, the weight of laying new asphalt became a potential issue,” said Copeland. “We asked a structural engineer to look into whether or not regular asphalt would work, and they were not comfortable with that much weight over the reservoir.”

Cold Lake, AB – Council voted to increase its Capital Road Improvement Program by just over $1 million after the Government of Alberta confirmed the continuation of an annual grant.

Cold Lake City Council had allocated $719,000 to the 2017 Capital Road Improvement Program, which generally sees significant funding from the Basic Municipal Transportation Grant (BMTG). Because the continuation of the BMTG, along with the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) grant, had not been confirmed by the Government of Alberta prior to the City’s budget process, the funding was not initially included in 2017 programming.

“Council took a prudent approach not to include grants that we did not know we were going to get in our budget,” Copeland said. “We are grateful that these grant programs were extended and we hope that this signals the continuation of these municipal grants on a long-term basis.”

Including the BMTG in the Capital Road Improvement Program brings the program’s total funding to $1.75 million for 2017, matching the funding the program saw in 2016.

Cold Lake, AB – Cold Lake City Council voted to authorize the purchase of naming rights and a marketing proposal from Portage College, which aims to transition its men’s collegiate hockey team into the city for the next season.

The City of Cold Lake was approached by Portage in mid-March and began discussions surrounding the possible relocation of its men’s hockey team, known as the Voyageurs, which plays in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC).

“The city’s understanding is that financial considerations prompted the college to look for a new home for its hockey team,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “We’ve built Imperial Oil Place for a very high level of hockey in this community, and we see the benefits of this partnership with Portage College. This will not only benefit sports fans, but enhance the experience for college students in our region.”

The Voyageurs men’s hockey team has nine years of experience in the ACAC and plays a regular season with 18 home games each year. The sponsorship and marketing deal which council accepted includes $300,000 in financial assistance over three years, as well as a commitment to help with the infrastructure that the team would need to make a successful transition.

Cold Lake, AB – With record-breaking levels of snow falling on the City of Cold Lake over the Easter weekend, city officials are thankful to the public for its patience.

“I’m very happy with the way the community responded to the weather,” said Mayor Craig Copeland. “I understand it was frustrating if a person needed to get anywhere, but our road crews were out all weekend to clear the snow as it fell, and we are proud of the job they did.”

Residents are thanked for their understanding and patience throughout the weekend. An announcement was made through the city’s Facebook page in regards to snow removal, which reached almost 14,000 people, and was shared over 80 times.

“I’m thankful the word was able to spread so quickly about what crews were up to over the holiday weekend,” said Copeland. “A lot of people had questions about what was going on, and it was nice to see interaction and feedback.”

Crews worked daily to remove the snow, following the priority areas as set out by the city’s Snow Removal Policy.

“The decision was made to push the snow to the side to allow for faster access to more areas,” said Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Nagoya. “Crews went back around later to unblock driveways once the main arteries of the city had been cleared; this took time due to the volume of snow.” The City’s snow storage facilities were also closed due to the recent warm temperatures making them into inaccessible mud pits which limited options to store snow.

As of Tuesday, some residential areas had yet to be cleared, as crews continued to work across the city to clear as much snow as possible.

Cold Lake, AB – Every year, marina slips struggle to be renewed on time, and council debated various options on how to improve the process at the last regular council meeting.

“It’s just not a good time to get people to renew their slips,” said Mayor Craig Copeland. “People go away for the winter, or may not know if they will even be here by the summertime, so a lot of people end up missing the deadline.”

Council voted to extend the deadline from March 15 to April 15 this year, giving slip holders an additional month to get their payments in for this year before losing their berth.

“It’s been a tough year for a lot of people, and we wanted to give them a bit more time to come through with their renewals before going down the list to replace them,” said Copeland.

The topic of changing the renewal policy also came up, with councillors offering various suggestions on how the process could be improved for the future. Council then voted to visit the issue in more detail at a future Corporate Priorities meeting, where they will look at changing the policy for marina slip renewals, and make it easier for administration and users alike.

Cold Lake, AB – A municipal election will take place this October, and preparations at the City of Cold Lake have already begun.

Information for voters and potential candidates has been posted on the city’s website, outlining everything from what kind of identification a person needs when voting, to the process of putting your name forward as a potential candidate. Election Day falls on Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, and information about the voting station and advance voting days will be made available closer to the date. Special ballots will also be available for residents who are incapacitated or who are out of town for the election.

Candidates will be officially named on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017, when Nomination Day takes place, though a candidate is still able to withdraw his or her name before noon the following day, should he or she change his or her mind. Candidates are required to submit their nomination papers between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Nomination Day, along with the $100 deposit, as outlined in the City of Cold Lake Municipal Election Procedures Bylaw.

A candidate can run either for the position of mayor or a position as councillor. All residents interested in running are advised to read through the material on the website, and contact Returning Officer Linda Mortenson if they have any questions.

Prior to Nomination Day, potential candidates who wish to raise money for their campaign or who will self-fund their campaign in excess of $10,000, must complete and submit an Application for Registration of Notice of Intent to Become a Candidate for Municipal Office prior to accepting any campaign contributions.

Cold Lake, AB – The Meals on Wheels (MOW) program will continue on after the city was asked to help with the administration of the program.

The Cold Lake Seniors’ Society requested that the City of Cold Lake take over the responsibility of managing the program beginning March 1, 2017.

“The public can come to us or call for a client application if they need assistance,” explained FCSS Manager Kim Schmidtz. “We’re happy to help keep such an important program running in our community.”

MOW is a meal delivery program where volunteers pick up pre-ordered meals and deliver them to pre-registered clients. Meal plans range in options, from hot meals to frozen meals that can reheated on demand. The program had requests for 490 meals in both 2015 and 2016.

Cold Lake, AB – There was a strong turnout at the City of Cold Lake-hosted meeting with people interested in volunteering to patrol their community.

With about 75 people in attendance, a presentation was offered by representatives from the Alberta Citizens on Patrol Association (ACOPA) on how to create and run a local group in the City of Cold Lake and the surrounding area.

“We were asked about Citizens on Patrol, and in response, we contacted ACOPA to have them come up to teach residents what it is and how to start a group,” said Mayor Craig Copeland. “There was a clear desire last night to learn more, and we were happy to help the volunteers get in touch with the right people.”