It was a fairly routine night Tuesday for the new 2012-16 North Battleford city council.
The new council was sworn in at a meeting the previous week, but that meeting was ceremonial in nature. Tuesday's meeting was the first of the term with actual City business on the agenda.
The meeting was largely devoid of rancor or divisions, with all motions passing unanimously.
The two main items of business during the meeting were the approval of committee appointments as well as the appeal of a demolition order on a property at 1261-99th St. However, a number of other items were dealt with as well.
Newly-elected councillor Ryan Bater wanted an update on whether the owners of a building at the corner of 11th Avenue and 102nd Street had complied with a city order to address pigeons nesting in the air conditioners in the building. The order had called for action by Oct. 18.
Fire Chief Pat MacIsaac responded the owners had 15 days to comply. If the order was not complied with, the special constables would arrange to have a contractor complete the work.
Bater also asked for an update on the Maple Leaf Task Force set up to assist those affected by the shutdown of Maple Leaf Foods, with the plant slated to close by the end of March, 2013. The task force includes several representatives from the City, two different government agencies, as well as Maple Leaf. City Manager Jim Toye responded that another meeting of the task force has been set for late next week.
The goal is to find a purchaser for the facility and some organizations are looking at it, with the idea to "replicate the number of jobs that we would have had there," said Toye.
Councillor Trent Houk followed up on concerns raised by defeated former councillor Grace Lang at the final meeting before the civic election on the issue of privacy at the change rooms in the new Battlefords Co-op Aquatic Centre.
Houk noted a number of people and organizations were "just not satisfied" with the change rooms and asked if there was any way to change the setup, such as to add stalls for people to change in.
The answer he received was similar to that given to Lang.
"It's pretty tough to alter things inside the building right now," said director of Parks and Recreation Keith Anderson, who encouraged users who prefer more privacy to use the privacy change room area in place there.
Anderson also provided his first CUPlex construction update of the new council term.
There wasn't a whole lot of news to report, with three facilities - the aquatic centre, field house and curling centre - now open and only the Field House component left.
Scott Builders still expects the field house to be completed by a target date of Dec. 10. The main holdup has been waiting for the concrete in the court floor to cure for 60 days prior to the gym surface going in.
On the whole things continue to progress well. "The building's looking good," said Anderson. Anderson also told council that for the first time in a long time there are no construction liens on the buildings.
In new business, council approved a resolution that $50,000 of the $150,000 already committed by city council for 2013 Centennial Celebrations be forwarded to the centennial committee this December.
Council also approved resolutions giving the City the go-ahead to purchase a new motor grader from Brandt Tractor Ltd. of Saskatoon for $259,541.25 (taxes included) as well as to accept the trade-in offer for the old and fully depreciated unit for $32,200.
Finally, council approved $20,000 in the 2013 budget for contracting the design
of financial reporting software for the City. The finance department wants to switch from Microsoft Excel, which the city had been using up to now, to a newer and more efficient reporting system.
Despite some initial misgivings from Houk, who had suggested the issue be dealt with during budget deliberations, ultimately councillors approved the resolution unanimously.
