Nipawin is closing the door on an eventful year which included the start of construction of a new pool and landfill, a grant for the water treatment plant, an expensive and empty Evergreen Centre and the election of a new mayor and council.
Rennie Harper, the town’s mayor, and Barry Elliott, the town’s administrator, spoke to the Review Dec. 20 about the highs and lows of 2016, as well as what they expect from 2017.
Water treatment plant
The Town of Nipawin received a grant for its much-needed water treatment plant this year, which Elliott noted as one of the town’s successes in 2016.
“[The grant will] really help to ease the burden on the budget and the taxpayer here, so that was extremely welcome news,” he said.
“We do know that we’re not anticipating that plant to be commissioned until into 2018,” Elliott said. “We are certainly a bit under budget at this point. I don’t know that we’ll continue to be, but we expect to be on budget at the very least.”
Landfill
The Town of Nipawin, along with other members of the soon-to-be-incorporated Boreal Area Regional Waste Authority, is watching landfill construction progress.
“I understand that the construction of it is actually ahead of schedule,” said Elliott. “It has also come in well under the initial projected budget so we’re excited about that.”
The administrator noted that he is looking forward to the regionalization of the landfill, which will see various partners working together to make BARWA a success.
Future projects
Harper, who began her term in November of this year, noted that she is looking forward to continuing to work on partnerships in 2017.
“One of our early on priorities and challenges is to try to come up with a solution that works for the community in regards to the Evergreen Community Centre. We have begun that process,” she said. “We are actually consulting with stakeholder partners.”
Other partners the mayor and council will work with include the regional fire protection members and the Twin Lakes District Planning Commission, as well as youth.
“We are going to be the first around here to have a youth councillor. We’re not sure how we’re going to do that yet but we are going to use that legislation and put a youth councillor at our table,” said Harper.
When asked if she felt any pressure to keep up the momentum of new projects for the town, Harper said:
“I think we need to really focus on making sure that what we’ve started is properly finished and focusing on the community internally a little more over this next coming year. I’m still optimistic that we’ll continue growing... but we want to make sure that the stuff that we’ve brought so far is actually working for us.”
Harper and Elliott agreed that most citizens in Nipawin share their optimism for 2017.
