A number of upgrades have been approved or are being planned for Nickle Leke Regional Park, city council heard at their meeting on Feb. 25. The status of the park's paddling pool is one of the major issues being dealt with by the regional park board.
A number of upgrades have been approved or are being planned for Nickle Leke Regional Park, city council heard at their meeting on Feb. 25.
The status of the park's paddling pool is one of the major issues being dealt with by the regional park board.
The board was told that new government guidelines require that the park has to have a fence around the paddling pool, as well as having a lifeguard on duty.
Board member Chris Stehr indicated he is meeting with government officials to determine if staffing the pool will be sufficient, or if they insist the park has a certified lifeguard in place.
The pool is an important area of the regional park, but it only has a depth of two and a half feet, said Coun. Winston Bailey, so they are puzzled as to why a certified lifeguard has to be in place, with the high cost associated with it.
Expanding on this issue later, Coun. Winston Bailey commented that provincial parks have been getting more funding but regional parks have not been, and the extra cost to hire a certified lifeguard for a paddling pool would be very expensive for them.
With the number of young families who are using the regional park, he said, "the paddling pool is a necessity. If we need a certifed lifeguard, we'll have to address ways to recoup that cost in other ways."
The parks board is also looking at replacing the front entry gate, which they want in place by this spring or summer, plus they are looking at the replacing the floating docks, as the old ones have suffered significant wear and tear.
In other council news:
The Weyburn Co-op Association was approved to expand their underground fuel tanks to an aggregate capacity of 300,000 litres; once the city received this request, city officials found that there is no limit imposed by the provincial and federal governments on how many litres can be stored underground, where above-ground there is a limit of 150,000 litres aggregate.
Council approved spending of around $6,000 for minor renovations in City Hall; the renos include relocating the large glass wall, which currently acts as a partition for a waiting room near the mayor's office, to the south wall in front of city manager Bob Smith's office, and installation of a new door beside the engineering reception desk. John Hulbert Construction was contracted to do the work.
A new street sweeper will soon be seen cleaning up city streets, after council authorized the purchase of a single-engine street sweeper from Excalibur Equipment of Saskatoon, for the price of $153,904, below the budgeted $180,000 in the fleet budget set aside for the new machine; council was told the old sweeper had an instrumentation malfunction, and parts were difficult to find for it as the manufacturer stopped making it; the old sweeper will be kept as a backup machine.
