MELFORT— A new skate park, sidewalk improvements and upgrades to highway service roads were the highlights of 2018 for Melfort, said the city’s mayor.
“Overall it was a good year, in the sense we got a lot of stuff done, accomplished, that we don’t normally get done,” said Rick Lang.
The new skate park, built at Spruce Haven Park, cost $700,000.
“It was well used and it appears to be something that is very valuable to our community because we’ve had lots of comments from outside communities, from people who are actually jealous of our community because of what we have there,” Lang said. “It provides a unique opportunity that didn’t exist before for the youth in the community.”
The city’s sidewalk replacement program was another highlight fir Lang.
“We had $650,000 in budget for sidewalk replacement that was essentially dedicated to essential sidewalks, and the rationale behind that is almost everyone uses the essential sidewalks – downtown sidewalks,” Lang said.
The plan after those are completed is to use infrastructure money to work on residential sidewalks.
While it was budgeted for $650,000, the city has already spent almost $700,000 for sidewalk replacement last year. The typical spending amount for the town per year, Lang said, was $50,000.
“So we did about 14 years worth in one year.”
Fixing the service roads beside Highway 6 was also one of Melfort’s highlights.
“That was brought up to new condition,” Lang said. “That was part of the Highway Connector Program and that was supposed to be done way back when we signed onto that program in 2008, and so I’ve been lobbying each year for five years since I became mayor, and there was some lobbying that went on before me.”
The cost for the road work was about $1.5 million, which was covered by the highways.
The historic post office window replacement is an on-going highlight Lang listed. Currently the new windows for the building are purchased and the contractor is in place. The windows have yet to be installed.
Some other highlights include light replacement at the Northern Lights Palace where new LED lights were installed and upgrades to Stovel Park in conjunction with the Melfort Elks.
The City of Melfort’s 2019 expected highlights includes new soccer pitches, created from the dirt removed from the construction of the skate park at the Spruce Haven Recreational Area.
The pitches are already leveled and developed – including irrigation and seeding. The city is expecting them to be ready for use mid-summer.
“So that’s an improvement, a vast improvement because... from a participant point of view, the largest sport that people are involved in. So that’s quite exciting because now they can bring in events that couldn’t possibly happen before.”
That isn’t the only addition to the recreational area, with planned male and female washrooms as well as the budget also allocating funds for a new splash park at the Spruce Haven. It is budgeted at almost $1.2 million.
“However that splash park, and that playground, and that’s finishing up the soccer pitches and some pathway extensions and some small maintenance buildings out there. The splash park itself, however, is getting up there in cost.”
For 2019, more money is in the city’s budget for sidewalk replacement, focusing still on essential sidewalks until all essential sidewalks are completed.
“We’re talking $1.3 million in sidewalk replacement over a two-year period, and like I said previously, we used to do $50,000 a year. So quite an expansion of that program, well needed.”
According to Lang, 2018’s biggest challenges, which will continue into 2019, is the water lines, which broke more than 50 times. Due to broken water lines, Melfort is currently losing 23 per cent of all water before it gets to the tap. This is costing the city $200,000 annually.
“We’re looking at that federal and provincial infrastructure fund to see if we can get some help out of that because there is allocated money for those kinds of things and we just need to present a case that shows we are in dire need there of some funding,” Lang said. “And our case would rank up near the top of the file so to speak. So we’ll be going after some infrastructure funding for that if we can possibly get it.”
If approved, the federal government, the provincial government and the city would each be responsible for paying a third of the cost.
Lang estimates it’s an $8 million project, and if it was approved the water lines would not be fixed before the end of 2019.
“It’s something that can’t continue year after year because it’s just too onerous on the city to try to deal with that kind of stuff,” Lang said.
The city is expecting a “substantial” deficit in their works and utility budget due to water loss.
“That’s probably the biggest challenge going forward.”
