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Estevan city council approves changes for police board

Members at large will serve two years
Estevan city council 2021
The current Estevan city council.

ESTEVAN - Estevan city council gave second and third readings at the Nov. 15 meeting to a bylaw for the Estevan board of police commissioners. 

Starting with next year, the two members at large on the police board will serve two-year terms, instead of one. Geoff Thiessen and Bernadette Wright, who are the two current members at large, will wrap up their one-year terms at the end of 2021, and would have to apply again if they wanted to remain for another two years.  

Councillors Shelly Veroba and Lindsay Clark, who are the current council representatives, will remain on the police board in 2022. 

Mayor Roy Ludwig is the other member.

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Council discussed a request from the new owner of 801 First Street, who wanted to acquire some additional land from the city to allow for a larger home and garage on the lot.  

Council gave second and third readings to a bylaw to add approximately 4.8 metres of an undeveloped road allowance from Eighth Avenue to the lot, which would create a larger building pocket.  

The initial bylaw, which received first reading at a previous meeting, was for four metres, so the document had to be amended.  

There weren’t any objections from franchise utilities or nearby landowners. City services are not impacted. 

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Six building permits worth more than $2 million were issued in October, bringing the total for the year to 42 permits worth nearly $4.23 million. 

This compared with the 47 permits worth nearly $3.72 million issued in the first 10 months of 2020.  

One permit for last month was listed as institutional, and was worth $600,000. The other five permits were classified as miscellaneous, and had a total value of $1.46 million. 

Thirty of the permits so far this year have been categorized as miscellaneous. 

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The water quality report for October shows the city treated more than 107 million litres of water and pumped nearly 104.4 million litres into the distribution system. There were no plant upsets and all regulated parameters for drinking water, except for aluminum, were below government regulations.  

“We are currently working on testing and options to correct aluminum carryover from our clarifier,” wrote Shane Bucsis, the manager of water treatment plant and the wastewater treatment plant. 

The biennial water security inspection was completed as well, and found that all record keeping and quality assurance was within compliance at the water treatment plant, distribution system, wastewater treatment plant and wastewater collection system. 

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During the inquiries portion of the meeting, Councillor Tony Sernick asked about street sweeping. He was glad to see the street sweeper out so often, but there were concerns about vehicles that weren’t moved before the street sweeper arrived.  

He asked if signs could be put out the day before, especially for the final sweeping of the year. Mayor Roy Ludwig said that’s what the city does, and city manager Jeff Ward added crews sometimes complete more work than expected during a day.