Fruitvale council members met on Monday evening for their regular council meeting. One councillor, Tabatha Webber, was absent from the meeting.
One piece of the agenda addressed the ongoing sewer projects in the municipality.
Lila Cresswell, chief administrative officer for Fruitvale, said the work is ongoing.
“The sewer upgrade is moving forward,” she said, adding that Fruitvale has an application in with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regarding future plans for the sewer outfall system. “We got our application in for the outfall changes to be approved by the DFO and the Provincial Water Act to do some more work in the stream and to change the outfall.”
The goal behind the outfall changes is to keep the outfall underwater all year-round and if approved, work would begin on Aug. 12.
According to Cresswell, she has heard from the departments that the answer will be a yes, which allows for further planning for the sewer outfalls.
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Who will maintain bike trails?
On the agenda was the state of the bike trails in the Lions Club-run Beaver Falls Park and who will maintain the trails after current work is done. The project is ongoing and will continue over the summer.
It was determined that the Lions Club would keep up the trails for the foreseeable future.
Councillor Prince speculated on a partnership between the club and the wider-reaching Kootenay-Columbia Trails Society.
“[The Kootenay-Columbia Trails Society] have an amazing databased trail system on their website,” she said. “They just totally updated with website and it is beautiful. We don’t want to see a duplication of services.”
Mayor Cecchini assured Prince that the Beaver Recreation Committee already has a contract with the trails society valued at $3,000 to work collaboratively with trails in the area.
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Facebook in Fruitvale’s future
Tammy Gallamore, communications for the Village of Fruitvale, prepared a report on the use of social media, namely Facebook, to communicate to residents and guests. The 27-page report was met with some comments from Coun. Jill Price about the effectiveness of the plan in light of current policy changes for Facebook business pages.
Prince suggested using a monthly service, such as Pagemodo or ShortStack, which allows for preplanned posts and promoted posts on business pages.
“Only 16 per cent of your posts show up in the news feed of people who have liked your page,” said Prince. “It’s very different from a personal page. It’s now a pay to play game.”
The next Village of Fruitvale Council meeting will be held on August 11 at 6:30 p.m.
Seniors luncheons a hit
The success of Fruitvale's monthly seniors luncheons was brought up at the meeting and Fruitvale Mayor, Patricia Cecchini was impressed with the turnout at the most recent event.
“It was huge this year,” she said. “I think had over 170 [seniors], it was crazy. I was jam-packed with presenters.
Cecchini also made mention of the volunteers who showed up to every luncheon and worked in the kitchen.
“There is a group that volunteers in the kitchen and serve every month,” she said. “Great dedicated bunch of people.”
For next year's lunches, the council has put an an application for the New Horizons Grant from the Employment and Social Development Canada office.
This past year, Fruitvale applied for, and received, the New Horizons for Seniors grant and it went towards putting on the luncheons and outside programs for seniors to promote socialization.