Drayton Valley has been awarded $1.3 million in funding from the Local Government Fiscal Framework grant.

Elvera Thomson, the General Manager of Corporate Services for the Town, says the funding is available to all municipalities with the exception of Edmonton and Calgary. The amount of funding a municipality receives depends on what the funding will be used for as well as how much money the Province has available each year.

Thomson says the Town is eligible for LGFF funding every year. However, the Province requests a plan for that spending from the municipalities.

“Once you’ve said what you’re going to spend it on, then they release the money,” says Thomson.

In the past, the Town used grants to cover part of the expenses for the 50 Avenue project as well. Thomson says a chunk of the money for the project came from the Canada Community Building Fund.

“For probably three years we saved that up for 50th,” says Thomson. “So, a large portion of 50th was covered by that grant and then the rest was debentured.”

Thomson says the LGFF funding is a very important source for the Town because it’s quite open-ended in terms of the projects and it doesn’t take a lot of work to receive the money. It’s also a fairly reliable source of income that the Town can plan around.

In some cases, grants can take years of work just to apply, and then they are not necessarily awarded the funds.

This year, the Town will be using the funds for the traffic light replacement programs, the sidewalk replacement program, parks upgrades, the wastewater and distribution lines and some mobile equipment for public works.

Thomson says there will also be funds used for the design phase of the next road project the Town is looking at, which is 43 Street.

“The actual project hasn’t been approved, obviously, but we’re doing investigative and design work for it,” says Thomson.

Council receiving complaints about potholes

Potholes are still on the minds of some Draytonians and they have been voicing their concerns to council. During the round-table discussion at the meeting, Mayor Nancy Dodds asked how things were coming along in addressing them.

Shelley Terry, the General Manager of Municipal Operations, explained that several of the more significant potholes will need to be addressed with something more permanent than a patch.

“We have to wait for our paving crew to be in town to address those,” says Terry, adding that there have been multiple challenges that have made it difficult to get everything taken care of.

Along with the freeze and thaw cycle negatively affecting patches that were applied earlier in the spring this year, they have had an equipment failure that needed repair. They also do not have the same amount of summer students they had last year.