Creston town council has paved the way to provide fire protection for West Creston and the Creston flats.
In a motion passed at the Feb. 25 regular meeting, council authorized staff to inform the Regional District of Central Kootenay “that the Town of Creston is interested in negotiating a contract with the regional district for the provision of fire protection for a portion of Area C, being West Creston and the Creston flats, proposing the level of service, the proposed equipment required to provide the service, and the responsibility with respect to the costs of capital infrastructure involved in providing the service.”
“In the last few years we have taken steps to deliver services throughout the Creston Valley,” Mayor Ron Toyota said. “It’s an efficient use of resources and in this case it involves the co-operation of the regional district and its regional fire departments.”
Council Briefs
•A motion passed that could lead to a regional septage system, to be located at the waste water treatment plant west of Highway 21. Council recommends an option from an engineering report for a receiving station in which septage (pumped from residential septic systems throughout the area) be received “at a modern septage receiving station adjacent to the existing pump well that currently collects water from the septage pits and geotube area, at a cost to the Regional District of Central Kootenay of $357,000.”
Council also authorized a one-year extension for the current agreement to receive and treat septage.
•The Town of Creston will apply under a new round of funding for up to $5,000 in matching funds to hold another regional Community to Community Forum with the Lower Kootenay Band. Forums are intended to create a dialogue on issues of common responsibility or issue and have been held in previous years.
•A donation of a travel bag was allocated for the Creston Rotary Club annual radio auction.
•The zoning bylaw for a property at 801 Vancouver Street was amended to allow for the creation of an 85-unit seniors apartment complex.
•The meeting was held at Kootenay Employment Services after the Creston Town Hall basement was damaged when a sewer line broke. Coun. Wesly Graham attended via a video link from Cranbrook, where he is working in MP David Wilks’s office.