BJORKDALE — James Majewski, Bjorkdale’s mayor, felt this past year has been great for his community.
“We accomplished a few things we set out to do and I think we’re trying to move forward with improving our community, which hopefully in the end will attract more people and more families to move here,” Majewski said.
At the start of 2018, Bjorkdale’s after school program was provided with $7,000 towards art classes and after school program co-ordinators’ wages and equipment. Bjorkdale applied again in 2018 and received another $5,000 towards the l program and were able to purchase 10 pairs of brand new cross-country skis.
Taxes remained the same, with council keeping the mill rate at 11 as it was the previous year.
“A lot of our people from our community are seniors and they are on a fixed income. To raise taxes all the time is harder for them to get by and anytime you can hold a line on that it’s better for everybody,” Majewski said. “They get a little more take-home pay and they can do extracurricular stuff.”
The village received a variety of grants in 2018. With approval of the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund, the village obtained funding to upgrade the wastewater pump station and lagoon.
This provided electrical upgrades to the pump house as well as the purchase of a new water and sewer pump and a heater for the pump house. The total received by the village came to $7,035.
Another highlight was the undertaking of improvements to Hara Street and Forest View Road.
More than 3,000 square meters of roadway was resurfaced in the village this past summer. This project cost $100,000. The village said that resurfacing the streets was a more permanent replacement rather than sand sealing the roads as was done in the past. About $56,000 was paid for by the federal Gas Tax Fund. The fund is a permanent source of funding provided up front, twice-a-year, to provinces and territories, who in turn flow this funding to their municipalities to support local infrastructure priorities.
“It was dug out and fixed up properly,” Majewski said. “It was a big investment for our town, it is hard to keep our streets in good shape and it is very expensive now to do.”
Other grants received for the community of Bjorkdale was funding through the Community Initiatives Fund program. The program provides grants to support programs and projects that fall within one of these three funding themes: Healthy growth and development of children and youth; Individual and community wellbeing; and non-profit and community leadership.
The village also invested in the new purchase of a snow blade for its tractor; snow removal now takes half the time to do the entire village.
These aren’t the only operational upgrades the village saw, with the Bjorkdale Fire Department receiving upgrades this past year, through a grant of $10,000 from the Cornerstone Credit Union for a new fire truck purchase. The department also purchased a new automated external defibrillator, safety boots for all of our 20 firefighters and a first aid course was held for all the members to attend.
The year was not without its fair share of challenges. The year started off with an unfortunate loss to the village with the death of Lorraine Fleming, Bjorkdale’s administrator for three and a half years. Nicole Goldsworthy took over the position.
“You want the next person to come in under better conditions than that, but it was quite a shock to our town and administration.”
That wasn’t the only challenge the village faced, with the Cornerstone Credit Union branch closing its doors on Jan. 29, 2018.
“They were a taxpayer to our community and we lost the taxes that business was giving to us,” Majewski said.
A highlight arose out of this with the RM of Bjorkdale purchasing the building and moving its Crooked River office location. With that transfer of ownership of this building, the RM of Bjorkdale and the Credit Union reached an agreement that a portion of the sale proceeds will be used for the benefit of the local community.
As part of the purchase agreement, $15,000 is made available for a viable economic development project in the form of a grant.
The purchase of the building brought three full-time permanent positions to the community.
This year brings its new highlights and challenges.
Goldsworthy will be going on maternity leave, so the village will be looking for someone to fill in the role for the village’s administrator.
“That will be advertised and hopefully they can start in April to have a little time to co-train,” Goldsworthy said. “So that will be an adventure.”
In 2019, Majewski hopes to do more paving in the community.
“It’s just a matter of we’ll see,” Majewski said.
“There are a lot of other issues that may come up in the future that might have to be looked after before that, but hopefully we can keep going from what we started with and keep going on.”
