Here are some items from Monday night’s council meeting.
The city and town are planning to revive the Battlefords River Valley Committee.
The committee had been in place for a number of years and had included representation from the city, town and province. But the province left the board and discontinued its funding program, and the committee had been essentially disbanded.
Now the plan is to reinstate the committee with city and town representation, with new terms of reference. The city has continued to allocate $68,000 towards the river valley.
Monday night, council approved the appointments of Mayor Ryan Bater, councillor Kelli Hawtin and Director of Leisure Services Cheryl DeNeire to the revived committee. Town of Battleford reps are Mayor Ames Leslie, Councillor Doug Laing and Recreation Director Jordan Schechtel.
“The river valley is of significant interest to both municipalities,” said Bater.
Another item before council Monday was a number of potential Cities Act changes being pursued by the province. Proposals deal with such areas as administration efficiencies, local governance and administration, property and taxation assessment, and additional regulations, and the province has requested feedback.
The draft proposals have been before council at both planning committee and council meetings, and there is a deadline of March 15 for municipalities to respond. Council received the proposed changes at their Monday meeting.
One addition to the agenda was the approval of Watermark Consulting to continue as their consultant dealing with activities with the city’s well field.
Director of Utilities Stewart Schafer noted the consultants are familiar with the issues faced there and best able to address them. Among issues identified was bacteria in the river that was the same as that found in the RMS Titanic.
“We have a consultant that understands the aquifer well, has been able to get the wells performing to their optimum performance, and we would like to continue using them,” said Schafer.
The motion to continue to contract Watermark for the water wells and well field aquifer at Water Treatment Plant No. 1 was carried.
A public hearing was held into the proposed rezoning of six lots at the corner of 18th Avenue and 103rd Street from CS - community service to R2 - residential. There were no objections presented to the rezoning at that hearing.
In proclamations, April 23-30 has been proclaimed World Wish Week in North Battleford, May 5 to 11 is Early Childhood Intervention Programs Week in North Battleford, and May 6 to 12 is Mental Health Week in North Battleford.
Fire Chief Trevor Brice gave the fire report for the month, and he noted there has been a 32 per cent increase in calls for sharps pickups during the first three months of 2019.
Notable pickups in March included one of 98 needles in the Sapp Valley area and 100, 1,000 and 3,000 in the Paciwin area. The larger counts were attributed to people evicted from rental properties.
Brice also pointed out the fire ban is in effect in the city due to the current dry conditions in the area. The ban does not cover approved fire pits.
Building permit numbers are in for March. Five permits were issued for the month for $166,000, compared to eight for $807,000. For the year to date, 19 permits have been issued for $497,000, compared to 16 for $1.06 million for the first three months in 2018.
