NIPAWIN — Partnerships were a big focus this past year for Nipawin’s mayor, which she calls “the underpinning of everything that we’re doing”.
“One of the things that were really important to us is focusing on partnerships and strengthening and reaffirming the partnerships,” said Rennie Harper. “Everything today is in partnership, nobody can afford or do things all alone.”
Those partnerships include the Twin Lakes District Planning Commission that brings together nine municipalities in the area, the North East Transportation Planning Committee, regional fire protection, the local housing authority, Cumberland College and the North East Tri-Municipal Alliance.
“It’s an alliance between Nipawin, Melfort and Tisdale. It’s a formal alliance that we’ve made to give ourselves the opportunity to work together on bigger projects, things that might not be available to any one of us individually, but if we were to tackle collectively we would be the size of a city.”
Other highlights for Harper include addressing the issues of cannabis, regional waste management, developing an asset management plan and working on the new water treatment plan.
“It was a very good year,” Harper said. “We managed to hold the line, budget wise. We managed to gather data to help inform our decisions, overall I think 2018 was a year in which we worked very hard but achieved a lot of different things.”
One highlight for Harper was one born of tragedy, and that’s the partnerships developed from the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.
“It had a huge impact on the first responders in our communities, Nipawin, Tisdale, Zenon Park. As much as it impacted all the people of Humboldt, it had a huge impact here too. I think one of the big things we’re very proud of is the fact early on we were in touch with the community of Humboldt, still stay in touch with the community of Humboldt.”
Nipawin hosted a community get-together in May that saw around 500 come to celebrate first responders from Nipawin, Tisdale, Zenon Park, Aylsham and Melfort.
From this, Town of Nipawin gathered close to $5,000, which was used to setup as an educational reserve for young people who want to go into areas such as first responders and firefighters.
“It came out of a tragic event, but it was a good way to show some support for other communities,” Harper said.
Challenges for Harper this past year was the sheer number of tasks to focus on, as well as the difficulty of forming those partnerships.
“Forming partnerships is as much a challenge as it is a highlight. It takes a lot of dedicated effort, it takes working together, sort of proceeding and not giving up when sort of the going gets tough.”
The new year will see the signing of the first protocol agreement between the Town of Nipawin and a First Nation community, with a signing between the town and Cumberland House Cree Nation.
“It’s in line with the Truth and Reconciliation call to action, and we’re going to be doing that at the Evergreen [Centre] on the 22nd,” Harper said. “That has taken us many conversations and much collaborations and work together with the Cree Nation. So it’s something that we’re very happy of.”
The new water treatment plant is expected to be completed this year, in 2019.
“The former council started with the water plant, we’re bringing that to a completion, and we continue to be on budget and on time. To me that’s a big thing.”
Harper wants to thank the community for the year.
“As we close the book on 2018 and we get ready for the New Year I wanted to take the opportunity to wish everybody a happy New Year,” Harper said. “I would like to thank each and every one of our people in our town. It’s my privilege to have them share their individual stories and their hopes for our town and to learn about their contributions – and I want to thank them, each one, for what they do.”
