The Rural Municipality of Weyburn is looking to the future for both development and for the management of water resources in the RM, along with preparing for the upcoming fall convention of SARM.
The RM council discussed a meeting for “Rapid Growth Communities” in Saskatchewan, which Reeve Carmen Sterling attended on Oct. 21 on behalf of the municipality.
At the meeting, government agencies and representatives of municipalities got together to determine what areas are experiencing significant growth, and to see if the Weyburn-Estevan area is seeing growth at a rate where collaboration on sharing of services (for example) might be of mutual benefit.
“Through my involvement with SARM, I was able to see how it worked out in the Humboldt area, such as setting up a solid waste facility for the area, a sewage lagoon, looking at water treatment capacity,” said the reeve.
She added that every area will be different, and the Weyburn area will have a different kind of growth than the Humboldt area has.
In reference to current development in the RM, development officer Rhonda Melle gave an update to council on what development activities are ongoing, including four applications for subdivisions.
These included one for single residential, two multi-parcel residential, and one commercial subdivision.
The level of development fees were reviewed by council and revisions were adopted in keeping with the council’s efforts to encourage development in the RM; council also wants to encourage RM residents to approach the RM to get the required permits when constructing new buildings, additions, or making renovations to buildings in the RM.
Council also reviewed a request from the City of Weyburn for response to a commercial subdivision near the city-RM boundary.
Council also held some preliminary discussion about certain enhancements to the zoning bylaw that may be made in the future.
With the SARM mid-term convention coming up on Nov. 13-14, council authorized members to attend; so far, this will be Reeve Sterling, Coun. Heather Cugnet and administrator Pam Scott, with new councillor Don Bell slated to attend the new councillors session on Nov. 12. (Bell replaces Coun. Maureen Clay, as he was acclaimed to represent that division; this was her last council meeting for the RM.)
The RM council will meet on Monday, Nov. 10, and will discuss the resolutions there just prior to heading to the fall convention, which will be held at TCU Place in Saskatoon.
Another upcoming meeting, which will be held concurrently with the fall convention, is the Assiniboine Basin meeting in Regina, which Maureen Clay will attend on behalf of the RM, since RM councillors will be attending SARM at that time.
“We are involved with the local watershed authority; we thought we may as well attend this one, given as some of the water flow through here ends up in Manitoba,” said Reeve Sterling, referring to the Souris River which goes into the U.S. and comes back up to Canada into Manitoba.
Also at the council meeting, council decided to align the wages of office staff with that of union contracts in the RM, with a one-year contract agreement, said the reeve.
In terms of maintenance, the mowing of grass along ditches has mostly been completed, except for the odd spot where there is still water laying in ditches.
Reeve Sterling said there are no major road projects ongoing right now, but some of the smaller ones are being attended to, such as requests from ratepayers for grader work.
