by Colin Smith
Three Morinville properties for which taxes have been in arrears since 2016 may be auctioned off later this summer.
If taxes are not paid or arrangements made to pay beforehand, the properties will be put up for auction at 3 p.m. on August 30 in Council Chambers.
The properties are: Plan 7620979; Block 14; Lot 26, for which there is a reserve bid of $305,000; Plan 7923020; Block 27; lot 44, reserve bid $315,000; Plan 0421911; Block 7; Lot 34, reserve bid $390,000.
The auction would be the culmination of a recovery process set out in the Municipal Government Act that requires taxes to be paid by March 31 of the fourth year they are in arrears.
“There is no other option but to proceed and hopefully people will make arrangements by that date,” said Deputy Mayor Lawrence Giffin, who moved the motion to hold the auction at Council’s June 25 regular meeting.
“There have been several attempts to rectify the situation,” added Councillor Sarah Hall. “I feel that at this time there is nothing else that can be done.
Integrated Regional Transportation
Mayor Barry Turner and Councillor Nicole Boutestein have been appointed Morinville’s members of the Integrated Regional Transportation Master Plan Task Force.
Turner will be the primary member and Boutestein the alternate on the task force, which will work on updating the initial Integrated Regional Transportation Master Plan adopted by the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board in 2011.
Ac,cording to Turner the task force is focusing on transportation infrastructure in the region.
“Everyone gets together and develops some criteria and scores infrastructure projects,” he said.
The list is then on to Alberta Transportation to make them aware of “regional priorities and where we think they should be putting their money.”
Year-End Payables
Council has rescinded a forgotten policy that has been on the books since 1999.
The Year End Payables policy, adopted by Council on August 24, 1999, outlined the process through which committee and board members’ honorariums were processed.
It was superseded when Council approved the Volunteer Board/Committee Member Honorarium Policy CFS469/2018 last December, but was forgotten and needed to be rescinded because it had no expiry date.
Chief Administrative Officer Stephane Labonne said a thorough review of Town policies has been underway and that Council can expect to be dealing with more outdated regulations.
A map of where the properties to be auctioned would help
Paul Dupuis You can access that through the Town of Morinville’s GIS system.
http://maps.morinville.ca/view.aspx