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Council to hear recommendations for Fort Chipewyan grocery store and new trucking permits

Last Updated Mar 13, 2017 at 4:27 pm MDT

PHOTO. RMWB Jubilee Centre. Sarah Anderson. REPORTER.

The city council only has three agenda items for tomorrow when they meet at 6:00 p.m. in the city council chambers at Jubilee Plaza.

To start, The Community Identification Committee will be giving a recognition to Bernard Jean in the form of a boat launch.

Jean came to Fort McMurray to work for Catalytic at the Great Canadian Oil Sands in 1967. He drew the first complete street map of Fort McMurray, served on many city committees, directed  a Baptist Church youth camp for six years and was the architect for the Baptist church on Franklin Avenue.

The Jean family opened Jean’s Gifts & Stationary in 1968 and started publishing “The McMurray Courier,” a newspaper that was distributed to local residents.

He loved Fort McMurray and spent his time in outdoors on the rivers with his family.

Council will also be reviewing two reports.

The first report is a Sustainable Development Committee Recommendation for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations (ACFN) Community Opportunity Readiness Program.

The Sustainable Development Committee will be requesting a letter of support from council for the ACFN to open a community owned grocery store in Fort Chipewyan.

The council’s support will be used when the ACFN applies for federal funding for the grocery store through Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

Currently there is only one grocery store in Fort Chipewyan, The Northern.

With no competition, the remote town sees sky-rocket prices on many staple food items.

PHOTO. Supplied. The Northern Alberta hamlet, Fort Chipewyan only has one grocery store with alarmingly high prices.
PHOTO. Supplied. The Northern Alberta hamlet, Fort Chipewyan only has one grocery store with alarmingly high prices.

 

The second report is a recommendation from the Land Planning and Transportation Committee (LPTC).

The LPTC is requesting that the RMWB and Alberta Transportation implement the Transportation Routing and Vehicle Information System (TRAVIS) for multi-jurisdiction permitting in Alberta.

TRAVIS addresses the trucking industry’s needs for a simple, electronic oversize commercial vehicle permitting system. It has the ability to accept a single electronic permit application and apply the rules and requirements of the Province and all affected municipalities to create one permit document.

This application will enable the Municipality to monitor and enforce the movement of over dimensional and overweight vehicles on municipal roads.

The Municipality will not be responsible for any charges associated with the operation or upgrade to the system.

Based on Alberta Transportation historical data for oversize vehicle trips, the municipality would see an annual net revenue of approximately $200,000 based on 12,300 permits annually.

A second option of a fixed free structure would see an annual net revenue of $126,000 based on 12,300 permits and a $20 permit fee.

The Province will provide free of charge access to the web-based permitting system and assistance to get the municipal requirements into the system.

The Municipality will need to follow its regular permitting procedures for other permits such as road use agreements and route haul permits, etc.

However, the Municipality can still add rules and restrictions for roads under their jurisdiction including, road bans on gravel roads during spring time, load restrictions on municipal bridges etc.

If the municipality decides to use the TRAVIS permitting system they will have the following:

  • Control over municipal road use – the system automatically notifies the Municipality of all permit application and usage of roads
  • More truckers will have easier access to these permits and will apply for them more often
  • Access to the permit databases which can be used for operational planning and road way management
  • Generation of revenue though the sharing formula with the Province

 

Currently there are 285 municipalities in Alberta participating in this program while 60 municipalities have not joined the program including the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.