BATTLEFORD — The Town of Battleford is currently holding council meetings at the Alex Dillabough Centre in Battleford while the town hall building is being renovated.
The latest meeting was held on May 20, and the next one is slated for June 3 at the new site as well.
The town previously announced it would renovate the main floor of the town hall building to make improvements both for staff and residents.
For the town's 2025 budget approval, council allocated $100,000 for this project. A hazardous material assessment will be conducted at a cost of $3,760, leaving an available project budget of $96,240.
The work will involve painting, flooring replacement, workstation reconfiguration, accessibility upgrades, and security enhancements.
Mayor Ames Leslie said the staff and the finance team are currently using council chambers to work out of during the renovation process, so council needed to relocate to the Alex Dillabough Centre for the time being while the work is being done.
"The environment [at town hall] was not conducive to have a council meeting because there were desks and legal documents everywhere. It would just be too much to move everything to accommodate council for an hour meeting," the mayor said. "It was council's wish to move it temporarily, which we have the ability to underneath our policy, to temporarily relocate council meetings."
The renovations started on May 12 and are expected to take about a month.
"It's a facelift," the mayor said. "In my 13 years of being here, we've never changed anything in the town hall, and in speaking to some of our long-time employees, it's been like decades since any renovations have been done to the town hall. There are some accessibility issues that we have. Our counter is too high for people with mobility issues. So there is some compliance there; we are going to work towards being more inclusive to all people of mobility. Then, there are some flow improvements we are going to do to make the workstations a little bit more appropriate for the employees and give a little bit more privacy."
