Tonight, town council will be discussing a record number of notices of motion that includes housing density, naming of the new Bow River bridge, establishing a public "sunshine list" of wages for the town's highest-paid positions and the creation of a recreation and parks board that will include members of the public for the first time.

In what is otherwise a relatively short agenda the motions likely will make up a large portion of discussion at tonight's meeting, starting at 6 p.m. in the council chambers of the Cochrane RancheHouse, 101 RancheHouse Road. 

The motions include the first two real transparency pieces since the fall election, although some initiatives have focused on using social media to further expand upon accessibility and to encourage discussion.

Councillor Alex Reed wants to see the town bring forward appropriate provisions of the Public Sector Compensation Transparency Act to leave no question as to the financial compensation received by the town's highest-paid employees.

Since the act was introduced the threshold has moved upwards and now allows for reporting the names of town employees who received total compensation and severance of $127,765 or more. Oddly enough, a lower threshold has been set for Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Largely, it's a matter of being as transparent as possible, says Reed, and 100 per cent of the feedback he has received is supportive of the proposal.

Councillor Tara McFadden wants to see a parks and recreation board formed that includes members of the public to provide input on recreation projects, trails, parks and recreational programming. Currently, this is all done in-house by the town.

Councillors Morgan Nagel and Alex Reed have teamed up to promote the need for reducing residential development density targets and it has received the support of at least one community association.

The Riverview Community Association has declared full support of the motion to consider reducing future residential densities to reduce growth and lessen traffic congestion.

In a four-page letter to councillors, the association spells out how they believe the current population density targets of the town threaten the quality of life here and provide suggestions on how this can be avoided.

Reed and Nagel have also co-sponsored a motion to name the new Bow River crossing the "Veterans Bridge" and to have administration explore options on how the names of men and women of Cochrane who perished in service with the Canadian Armed Forces can be permanently displayed.

Mayor Jeff Genung believes the alarming number of notices of motion demonstrates the eagerness of the new council to seek change and come in the absence of their first strategic planning session  He believes there are other ways these matters could be handled without disrupting workflow and without tying up council's agenda.

"Council is eager to jump in and get to work and they've picked on this particular way of getting things done,' says Genung. "What I'm trying to do is get us together more often informally so we can have discussions on these things. I'm not trying to belittle any of them as not being important, but they seem to be one-offs whereas I think we need to be focusing more on the big picture."

"I'm going to be encouraging council to try and maybe zoom out a little bit."

The council's first strategic planning session is in February and he believes it will help.

"They can have that say at a strategic planning session and that sets the stage for administration to go off and do that work. Hopefully, that aligns with everything everybody wants and they'll be fewer of these motions coming forward."

He believes it's not a sustainable business model to continue to present so many notices of motion and it's particularly challenging for administration.

"If we continue to notice of motion them and get them off the day-to-day then we're really not doing our job."