Mayor-elect Sharon Schauenberg took the oath of the office at 7:32 p.m. in a townhall meeting on the evening of November 16 after CAO Carol White called the Assiniboia Town Council to order.
Thereafter, Bob Ellert, Kent Fettes, Patrick Grondin, Peter Kordus, Graham Harvey and Paul Tendler signed and verbalized their oaths.
“Thank you for putting your hats in the ring,” Schauenberg said to the newly-appointed councillors. “I know this isn’t an easy job.”
Diverse issues were discussed at the townhall meeting, such as the recent purchase of a new snow plow.
Councillor Tendler asked why the town didn’t obtain a used plow costing a third of the price.
Director of Operations, Nic Zuck, said the town preferred to procure a new snow plow with an attached warranty.
Councillor Kordus agreed, saying he was against purchasing used equipment in some instances because warranties effectively offer safeguards against equipment breakdowns and other possible glitches.
The lack of an RCMP presence in Assiniboia represented another topic of discussion on Monday night. Currently, services provided by the RCMP are costing the town $192,000 per year.
“This is a common concern of every municipality,” White said. “We’ve seen a lack of members out there,” she reported.
Also, since the advent of COVID-19 in March, communications between the town and the RCMP detachment in Assiniboia have become difficult, as members are no longer presenting the RCMP reports in-person at the town council meetings.
Another item on the agenda for discussion was the upgrade to the water treatment plant – an upgrade costing nearly $2.5 million. Additionally, stricter rules for the plant operators are now in effect.
“We’ll be watching our operators on a stricter basis,” said White. “Optimization for the plant was supposed to happen in the spring, but COVID cut everybody off. We had a very hard time this summer because of the algae bloom,” White added.
The recent municipal elections in Assiniboia on Oct. 28 and Nov. 9 denoted another subject for examination at Monday’s town council assembly – particularly the number of voters who engaged in Assiniboia’s electoral process.
White said the percentage of voters wasn’t available, but she estimated that nearly 60 per cent of Assiniboia’s eligible voters participated in the advanced polls and voted on election day, despite blizzards on the weekend before Nov. 9.
According to White, there were 59 mail-in ballots and 786 in-person voters.
Also, the days for townhall meetings were debated over, with a decision to move these meetings to the first Wednesday and third Wednesday of every month at 7:30 p.m. instead of Monday. However, town council meetings might conceivably switch back to Mondays during July and August.
Another item at the town council meeting related to the educational requirements for Mayor-elect Schauenberg and the new council. Elected official training has been organized for Dec. 3-4 and will last one day and a half.
In addition, a deputy mayor will be selected on an alternate basis every two months. Moreover, all the new personnel on council will receive a binder with financial information and other matters relating to Assiniboia’s governance. Also, an agenda package will be prepared before town council meetings.
COVID-protocol represented another item of deliberation for the Assiniboia Town Council. Presently, the provincial government has issued a mandate for masks to be worn in public places. The federal and provincial governments are responsible for establishing public health orders within Canada’s rural and urban communities. However, the town council decided to implement a mask wearing policy for town employees.
“I think it would be beneficial to have the guys wear masks and social distance,” said Zuck. Therefore, the Assiniboia Town Council agreed to make masks mandatory whenever town employees were unable to socially distance themselves.
With a flurry of COVID-related rule changes and adjustments in Canada and Saskatchewan, Mayor-elect Schauenberg remarked how this might pose a drastic effect on the general well-being of the people living in Assiniboia and the surrounding regions.
“It’s going to be a long winter and I am worried about mental health,” Schauenberg remarked in closing.
