You can usually tell summer is coming to an end when the provincial government of the day starts to pop its head back up from amid the pile of summer holiday brochures.
Often their first foray back into the public eyes comes with what have become obligatory visits to communities across the province to gauge the pulse of public sentiment to borrow an oft used label.
Such was the case last week when Premier Brad Wall made a pit-stop in Yorkton, holding a meeting with Yorkton Council and then doing a bit of glad-handing with the faithful at a Saskatchewan Party barbecue.
Now it would seem that anytime public officials meet with their constituents it is a good thing, and in generalist terms it is.
But stops like the one in Yorkton last week are more about getting some media attention, and keeping up appearances with party faithful.
It has little to do with gauging what issues are important to Yorkton since those should already be known to the government because frankly they have not changed significantly in a few years now.
In case Mr. Wall and company have forgotten, Yorkton like all Saskatchewan cities, towns, villages and hamlets are facing an infrastructure crunch, a crunch which could escalade into a crisis all too soon. This impending crisis is not something which has sprung up over the summer. It is a problem born of the 1960s, and gets worse as the years pass and the infrastructure built all those decades ago deteriorates with age.
To-date it is a problem the higher levels of government have not managed to offer a viable solution to, and it is something beyond the ability of municipalities to handle financially on their own.
Yorkton also wants and needs a new hospital. Actually the East Central region of the province needs the facility.
Work locally is already well-established with various organizations and businesses stepping forward to fund a plan for the new facility.
But therein lies a conundrum, plans have a shelf life. That has been stated at the Sunrise Board level already, so the plan in place may be obsolete if your government doesn't announce the project sooner than later.
Yes we are aware the Yorkton hospital is not the only one in need of replacement, the psychiatric centre in North Battleford one often mentioned. That said it would seem the Ministry of Health could manage a priorities list which would put into the context of need just where a new regional hospital in our city is in terms of the province. From there Yorkton, and all communities awaiting health facility announcements could have a far better understanding of when funds might come, based on the rather well-established financial spending constraints of the province.
Then there is the new Trades Centre for the Parkland College. The project is moving ahead slowly, even as the needs for such training grow in the face of a still vibrant community. It is a project we need and the sooner it opens and starts training people to fill the waiting list of skilled jobs the better.
From there you can add continued need for affordable housing, and in this context affordable is now a term outstripping the ability of many low income earners to access even the lowest cost of new developments. That need remains a constant in community's such as Yorkton.
The list is not a short one in terms of what a city such as Yorkton requires to meet its future, but it is a list Premier Wall and company should well have understood long before its media oriented visit last week.
