Estevan's city councillors and administrative staffers entered into the first stage of2014 budget deliberations today. There will be a few more detail-smoothing events to follow once the questions brought up at this session are attached to answers in subsequent meetings.
Estevan is entering a key period in its growth, and this council faces some very tough challenges. We trust they are aware of the potential pitfalls that will come with hesitation.
Estevan has been informed the one per cent PST proceeds-sharing formula will mean a $75,000 decrease in funds coming from the province next year. That does not bode well for local deliberations.
Since the city is in debt to the tune of over $35 million, council would be ill advised to say "whoa" while entrenched in this specific mud hole.
With a population that has grown by about 1,000 in the past couple of years, the demands on civic infrastructure is growing exponentially, so again, there can be no "whoa" in the mud hole.
There are a number of civic-driven projects that need to be completed, sooner rather than later. The two most obvious examples are the parking lot in front of the leisure centre/Affinity Place and some city streets that simply cannot go another year without replacement, or at least, significant base repairs. It took most of last summer, but 13th Avenue was repaved, much to the relief of local motorists, but the leisure centre parking lot was not completed. A substantial section was done, and landscaping work started. After 21 years of promises, this eyesore parking lot was finally tended to, at least partially. It needs to be finished in 2014.
Sixth Street, home to our "temporary" heavy truck bypass for the past 50 years, has been shredded by the big transport traffic once more and looks more like what 13th Avenue north looked like two years ago. We expect that is on the radar for a major overhaul, along with all the new streets and avenues that have to be serviced and surfaced and the other streets that were neglected in the 1990s and early 2000s by previous councils who decided they were going to save the ratepayers some cash while winning their votes with no civic tax increases spending the SaskPower mitigation funds instead. Well, that piggy bank was broken more than a decade ago.
There is a crying need to keep moving forward on the green space front, too. After all, this is the host city for the 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games. We can't be saying "whoa" there either.
If we intend to keep boasting about what a fast-growing, vibrant and forward-thinking community we are, then we have to be prepared to put our money where our boasts are.
There is no doubt we are again facing the reality of property tax increases in the Energy City. It's the price we have to pay if we are going to bring fresh water to north side expansion and to keep it safe and available in the rest of the community. We need to keep our airport upgraded to accommodate air traffic, something we rarely think about on coffee row, but our local commerce depends on it. We need improved parks, new street sweepers and snow graders and operators. None of these comes through wishful thinking.
So, as we said at the top, the budget deliberations will be interesting this year for what they will include and what they will not.
