The mayors of Battleford and North Battleford had no shortage of news to share in their annual state of the City/Town address Tuesday.
The event, hosted by the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce, allowed both Mayor Ryan Bater of North Battleford and Mayor Ames Leslie of Battleford to outline their municipalities’ initiatives and the challenges each community is facing.
Not surprisingly, the tone from each was positive.
Mayor Ryan Bater of North Battleford:
Bater spoke about City initiatives familiar to local residents, such as downtown revitalization, ongoing community safety initiatives and UPAR.
Bater spoke of the most recent budget. The previous year’s budget was “a significant challenge” to the City, he said, due to discontinuation of the payments-in-lieu from SaskPower and royalty payments from SaskEnergy.
“Last year the hit to the City was $1.2 million, which is huge,” said Bater.
However, “there were changes in this budget that were very welcome,” said Bater, noting SaskEnergy payments have been redirected back to the City of North Battleford. Bater noted the City was vocal about the changes in last year’s budget, and he thanked the province for making changes this year.
“We really appreciate being listened to,” said Bater.
While Bater covered familiar ground, some items were newsworthy.
One was downtown redevelopment efforts. Bater noted the first round of building permits have been submitted for the new Magic Lantern cinema project.
Bater told the audience that work was expected to start “not next week but the week after.” The North Battleford mayor was enthused by the prospect of seeing the long-awaited project finally get underway.
“Very exciting. I think the words I used last year was that we were going to make downtown great again, and we are, and we’re just getting started.”
Also related to downtown, Phase II downtown revitalization construction will happen this year on 101st Street from 12th to 14th Avenues.
The mayor acknowledged there were complaints about congestion from the downtown/UPAR work last year, but said construction planned for this year should be less disruptive.
“We did our best to try and distribute the work this year throughout the city, so it would be less disruptive to traffic patterns.”
The other newsworthy item was how the City plans to deal with the departure of Jim Puffalt as city manager. Puffalt’s last full day on the job was May 4, but his last official day is next Friday, May 18.
Bater confirmed that after that date, Bill Samborski, the City’s director of Leisure Services, will serve as the acting city manager while the search goes on for a permanent replacement.
A search firm has been taken on to conduct the search. Bater said they expect a shortlist to be compiled by the beginning of June, which means “we could be interviewing sometime in June, and then it comes down to the availability of the successful candidate.”
Bater made clear the City will not rush through the process.
“We want to make sure we have the right person, the right fit,” said Bater, who noted the city manager is the most important civil servant in North Battleford.
“This will be probably the most important decision council makes during this term. It’s that key of a position. ”
Mayor Ames Leslie of Battleford:
Much of the news in Mayor Leslie’s speech focused on emerging issues facing Battleford.
“We’ve had a really tough year as a community,” Leslie acknowledged at the outset, referring to the Battlefords.
He pointed to the recent Gerald Stanley trial, suicides and acknowleeed the Humboldt Broncos tragedy as well. Despite that, Leslie lauded the efforts of those helping to make the community stronger.
“It was amazing to see the leaders in this room, the leaders in our community, step forward.”
Leslie then turned to Battleford initiatives. The big news from his address is that a date has been set for presentation of the Town’s budget.
That will be presented at a meeting at Town Hall May 24. It will be open to the public.
On community safety, Leslie noted residents may have noticed the presence of a new public safety officer in the community.
“You may have seen him out and about the last few weeks. He may have pulled you over in the last couple of days if you failed to stop at a stop sign or if you have failed to obey (limits) by speeding through school zones and playgrounds.”
It is not yet a formal Community Safety Officer program like the City of North Battleford. The officer has not given out tickets, Leslie said, but it’s part of council’s direction is to “build the safest community we can” for residents.
The idea is to curb some of the activities of residents and visitors. Leslie also noted residents can expect a new traffic bylaw that will lower speeds in school zones from 40 to 30 km/h, similar to what is now in place in North Battleford.
Battleford is also facing issues with addressing its infrastructure deficit, with work to the tune of $24 million, Leslie said.
“Like the city, our pipes are 70 years old. Some are even older. And town council will be taking an approach over the next year or three years to address where to start and what to do.”
Council had initiated a study of all the pipes and sewers to determine where to start.
Leslie said another emergent issue is historic buildings.
“These buildings are at the point where they are going to require a significant amount of money to rehabilitate and to keep viable within the community.”
That will be another focus over the coming years.
When asked if Battleford might follow North Battleford’s lead and bring in a dedicated UPAR tax, Leslie told reporters that “this is a discussion that council is having, actually, over the last year over whether a UPAR or a levy is the right approach.”
He said town administration is gathering information on the pros and cons of introducing a UPAR levy or sticking with local improvements.
The biggest infrastructure issue, Leslie told the noon-hour audience, and one that only came to their attention the previous evening, is that the “old Battleford bridges are no longer safe.”
This involves the portion of the bridge still open to vehicular traffic from Battleford, which is currently the only artery to Finlayson Island.
Leslie said this is “a hard discussion at the Town of Battleford that is going to have to be made over the next six months.” Council will be pondering the viability of the bridges, both from the north and south side.
“This is one part of our budget that, thank goodness, we’re not done yet … because it may be something where we may have to look, in the short term, to address this and see if it is viable to keep this bridge.”
