Canmore Town Councillor: Esmé Comfort: One Breakfast with Santa, an Alpine Torrent Mitigation Symposium and multiple meetings later...

Apparently Santa and I are close personal friends...we be checking that Naughty & Nice List...#justsayin'

I was a volunteer helper at the Rotary Festival of Trees at the Canmore Civic Centre on Sunday, December 7th. Such fun!

Very festive and jolly.

Monday, it was back to Town business - after I finished three hours at my full-time job.

(I have borrowed a lot of text from the original email, to save time.)
The invitation to an Alpine Torrent Symposium came from the "Mitigation and Resilience Secretariat - Flood Recovery Task Force" of the Government of Alberta .

As we all know too well, the June storm caused extensive damage to communities, homes, highways, and provincial parks. Much of the damage in the affected areas of the Rockies was caused by debris laden torrents. This one day symposium described the challenges associated with managing torrents in alpine communities, including hazard and risk assessment, and strategies for active and passive mitigation.

Presentations by technical experts were followed by Q&A. Facilitated group discussions in the afternoon allowed attendees to contribute to flood mitigation planning in Alberta.

Presenters included Dr. Matthias Jakob, aka "our guy".

Matthias currently leads a detailed hazard and risk assessment for Cougar Creek on behalf of the Town of Canmore. Matthias Jakob has a PhD from the University of British Columbia in geomorphology. He says he is one of those lucky people whose job and hobbies overlap. A keen outdoors person and mountaineer, he is a senior geoscientist with BGC Engineering. Matthias particularly enjoys fieldwork “in spectacular terrain”. As a consultant, he solves applied earth science problems such as determining where, and how often, debris floods are likely to occur, and the extent to which such occurrences pose risks to humans and infrastructure. Typical jobs might entail interpreting air photos for geohazards along a planned access road or pipeline, modeling wave run out from a landslide falling into a fjord, and coring trees to date impact scars of debris flows to complete a frequency analysis.

Dr. Johannes Hübl - Head of the Institute of Mountain Risk Engineering, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. Dr. Hübl is an expert in debris flow studies, torrent control, torrent science, afforestation in subalpine areas, and early warning systems. As head of Mountain Risk Engineering at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Dr. Hübl oversees a Master’s program in torrent control. Graduates of his program go on to work in consulting, and the WLV – Austria’s national organization for avalanche and torrent control. Dr. Hübl spoke about his experience in managing alpine torrents, as well as the Austrian approach to managing and mitigating risk for its thousands of alpine communities.

Other municipalities were represented and our MLA, Ron Casey, was in the house. The research continues; short term mitigation work continues. Big learning day from which two things stuck: 1). very glad the Town initiated this work so quickly and the right people are doing the work 2). we were very very lucky in 2013 that no lives were lost. I will find out when in the new year there will be a public info/update.

Tuesday, December 11 came COW Committee Of the Whole. First up, Karsten Heuer of Y to Y on the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (verbal presentation). He pointed out flaws in the plan, starting with the fact that the map in this "new" strategy is an almost exact duplicate of the1984 Eastern Slopes Policy. Karsten expressed the hope that Council would provide feedback to the Province to ensure headwaters are properly protected to preserve the integrity of the land.

Then Staff Reports:

1. Administration and Enforcement of the Business Registry. It had been proposed hat Canmore Business and Tourism assume this role but after some consultation, the business registry for 2014 will remain as a function within the Town of Canmore until further research and stakeholder engagement is conducted.

2. Wayfinding Program aka Signage and Landmarks...and more. This was to update council on the progress of the wayfinding design and receive feedback on initial concepts. There will be one more chance for public input on Axia Creative's design, so watch for the notice of that.

Councillors then reported on committee and board meetings - I will start doing separate posts after those meetings. Then Service Areas reports - huge volume of info there. Then Council Resolution Action List, Outstanding Resolutions. This is to update on the Action list: where the lead needs to be purged, what's been completed and what's on hold or even superfluous. Adjourn. Whew.

Aaaaaaand aaaaaaway we go, right after an hour break into a Special Meeting of Council, to pass the budget. After 32 hours of budget committee meetings, there was not a great deal left to discuss. The local media reported extensively through that process, I do not have a great deal to add, except to compliment Administration on the concise thoroughness of the presentations. Detail was available upon request, but we rarely got bogged own by an excess of material. Also major shout out to the volunteer members of the pubic of the Budget Committee - your common sense and expertise was invaluable.

Thursday, December 12th - Public Art Committee. On the agenda: wrapping Town utility boxes in art. Since a limited number of submissions had been received, further entries will be solicited. The committee is very excited about bringing the 2014 Alberta Public Art Summit to Canmore, November 6,7 & 8. Details to follow.

Between then and now (Tuesday, 12:30 p.m.) boatloads of reading, Santa tasks, Valley Winds concert at the Canmore Legion, dinner with good old pals and... volunteering at a truly inspirational event: the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Canmore World Cup 2013 at the Canmore Nordic Centre. Talented, disciplined athletes with wills of iron competin for the right to go to the Sochi 2014 Paralympics.