In no time at all, half of January has already rolled past and like everyone else whose gearing up to tackle new projects, so too is the City of Humboldt. Mayor Malcolm Eaton sat down with the Journal to talk a little bit about the highlights of last year and the upcoming challenges for 2015.
To start, Eaton said that 2014 was not only a successful year for the city, but also an important one. It was focused on planning and laying down the groundwork for significant impending projects that will help Humboldt to grow healthily.
“I think probably the really big important theme that ran through 2014 for us was really about the Our Humboldt planning process; how that evolved and came together and we ended up with just tremendous involvement of the community,” he said. “We ended up with some really good ideas about what the community values and we ended up with some really good directions for where the community needs to go and it really sort of sets the scene for the next five to 10 years.”
In terms of highlighted points from last year, Eaton made specific mention of events such as the opening of the not-so-new-now Humboldt & District Gallery in the old Merchants Bank; the City’s purchase of the St. Elizabeth property; Theo Flurry’s visit; the Saskatchewan Winter Games that were hosted here; Streetfest; and the grand opening of many businesses.
The gallery has already gained traction as a new communal gathering place for art events and other gatherings and the St. Elizabeth property is promising bigger opportunities. Regarding the grand openings, Eaton cited these examples and other businesses’ facility expansions as examples of
Humboldt’s strengthening business community.
He also noted in particular the improvements made by Communities in Bloom; the Sports Hall of Fame induction and the brief return of Brendan Witt; the changes at the seniors club, specifically the changing of it to the Community Gathering Place; and how Arts Humboldt has become even stronger thanks to the new space at the gallery.
“So just in summary, we’re very fortunate in Humboldt. I’ve mentioned a few, but there are other community groups and organizations that just always impress us with the work that they do,” said Eaton.
After his recap of all that had come before in the year prior, he then went on to speak a little about the upcoming projects for the City. The majority of it will be focused on infrastructure in two categories: old infrastructure that needs to be renewed or rebuilt and new infrastructure that needs to be constructed for a growing community.
Following these goals, the two biggest undertakings that will be attempted this year are a new reservoir and a sewage lift station. Thus far, the City has applied for funding from the Building Canada fund, without which they won’t be able to go ahead with either of the projects. The expansion of both the reservoir and the lift station will be necessary if the city is to grow, as it would be required by government regulations (and population capacity needs) in order to build more houses and subdivisions.
“Those are both major projects involving significant dollars and the only way they can happen is with the support of federal and provincial funding,” said Eaton. “They’re very important to the future growth of the city, so these are must-do projects and we think we’ve done good work in preparing for those submissions.”
Beyond that, the City will be tackling normal infrastructure issues such as aging pipes and development around the city’s borders.
Centennial Park will also be seeing a lot of work done in the coming years. This year, the ball diamonds and sports fields will be getting fixed, specifically its drainage issue. Then there’s anticipated multiplex and recreation facility. While it’s unconfirmed where it will be, there’s a good chance it will be at Centennial Park since it was part of the original concept design. Actual construction for the facility – including a theatre as per community responses – won’t begin for a while yet, but Eaton said they’re hoping to have a concept plan for it drawn up by this year. With any luck, the community is looking at a two- to six-year time frame for completion of the facility.
“We’ve got to start planning for these kinds of additional recreational and cultural facilities in the community,” said Eaton. “The community has certainly suggested to us that we’ve done enough consultation and talking about the ideas and we need to get on with it so council is putting into place this year a design and planning process around that.”
Despite all this planning and optimism for upgraded infrastructure and facilities, Eaton is expecting the usual challenges that every community faces: resources. Not only is it difficult to obtain funding for projects, but they also have to be concerned with finding quality contract help at a decent price.
According to Eaton, they had a really good construction season in 2014 for things like water lines and roadwork; only a few projects weren’t completed due to availability of contractors. He’s hoping that they’ll have the same success this year in finding the people to do the work.
“As a smaller city in Saskatchewan, it is a challenge to attract the contractors you need to do this kind of work and in lots of ways, we don’t have the local capacity,” he said. “So it’s an ongoing challenge for our staff and for council to really try and use the resources that we have available in the best way possible; that includes money as well as manpower.”
Moreover, it didn’t help that the City has had some significant staff changes over the past year. First James Moller resigned, which left Sandra Pauli as acting city manager until Roy Hardy stepped into those shoes. Then Steve Brown left, leaving the department short staffed until Fazal Quadri could take up his mantle. Eaton said that while they’re back on track now, it did slow them down for a bit while the new additions settled in.
Nevertheless, the new staff have proven ready to tackle new projects and bring their past experience to the table, such as Hardy with Humboldt’s first foray into the Main Street program. While he has been long associated with it from his work in Ontario, this year will mark the city’s first time benefiting from the program’s resources.
“The whole downtown notion, the heart of the community, how do we strengthen it? We know we’re going to have strong commercial development out on the commercial quarters of the city, but what’s happening downtown? And being an affiliate member, we’re sort of involved with the Main Street program,” said Eaton. “It’s going to be a real addition to us, a real asset to us, so we’re going to get some resources out of that. We’re going to get a little bit of funding, it’s going to help with planning, and it’ll bring some expertise to help us.”
In a nutshell, that’s the gist of what the community has accomplished for 2014 and a preview of what is yet to come. And yet, despite all of the openings and growth of the community, there’s still no word on when – or if – Humboldt will be getting a Walmart.
