NIPAWIN — Nipawin’s new water treatment plant, still under construction, is under budget so far.
The project, estimated at $20.8 million, is under the budget approved by council by around $258,000. Rennie Harper, Nipawin’s mayor, said to keep arms and legs crossed that trend will continue.
“It is going well, very well,” said Barry Elliott, the town’s administrator. “We’re preparing an invitational tender for the next phase, which is a lot of the internal work such as plumbing and drywall and that sort of thing.”
That contract is the eighth of 14 contracts required to complete the plant.
“The intent is to award it to – and the only ones who will be invited to apply are – local firms,” Elliott said. “We’re trying to make sure some of our local contractors and businesspeople benefit directly from involvement in the project, so we’re looking forward to that tender.”
Canada Post service
Nipawin council is keeping an eye on Canada Post service after it was found out the crown corporation has moved the sorting of local mail to a facility in Saskatoon.
Council had sent a letter to Canada Post expressing concerns and they had sent a reply, shared at the April 9 meeting.
“Please be advised that our teams are taking a deeper look at this situation to help make sure our processes and operations continue to operate smoothly,” the letter said.
Harper said council has decided to follow up with Canada Post before the end of July.
“We’re actually going to try to hold them to task a bit by contacting them again and asking them what’s changed and what have they learned,” she said.
Getting youth involved
The mayor has been active in an effort to get youth active in the governance of the town.
Harper said she’s in conversation with teachers at LP Miller Comprehensive about setting up a youth councillor program or something similar in the next school year.
“You want young people to understand what government and governance is all about,” she said. “You want them to be involved in the community and what better way to do that than to mentor them a little bit.”
It’s not just the high school that Harper’s been talking to about this.
“We’ve been in conversation with Wagner [Elementary] School here – Grade 5 and 6 students –and we are actually going to have a mayor and deputy mayor for a day and they’re actually going to spend a day with the deputy mayor and myself doing some tasks.”
The mayor said the plan is to do that sometime this school year.
Duplex discussion continues
Discussion continues behind the scenes about what to do about the doctor duplex.
The town owns the building, while the Saskatchewan Health Authority owns the land. Both organizations believe that only one of them should own both the building and the land, but the health authority said it doesn’t want to sell the land.
Elliott confirmed the town had discussions with a firm about a cost to move the duplex to a different parcel of land.
“There’s a lot of discussion that has to happen yet, particularly between the council,” he said.
“We’re going to want to have further discussion with the Saskatchewan Health Authority.”
Condolences and appreciation
Harper also said she wanted to provide condolences to family and friends of those involved in the bus crash, as well as the wider hockey community. She also wanted to thank those who responded to the emergency.
“The Town of Nipawin extends its appreciation to all of the people that responded: Arborfield, Zenon Park, Tisdale, Nipawin. Ordinary people came out to that tragic scene of the accident.”
