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Year in Review: Nipawin lays down groundwork in 2018

Jan 11, 2019 | 7:44 AM

With 2019 and beyond being planned for, 2018 was what Mayor Rennie Harper called a building year.

One of the goals the Town of Nipawin set was to develop a new strategic plan, which would foresee where it would end up in five years up until 2023.

“I might say that 2019 from our perspective is the year of potential,” Harper told northeastNOW. “What we’ve been doing in the last year has been setting a good foundation. We’re trying really hard to remain focused on our long-term goals, so we’ve put in some ground work.”

Long-term goals for Mayor Harper and Nipawin council is for the town to be people oriented, where citizens can feel welcome, active, creative, and have an opportunity for economic development and employment. The town intends to achieve this by forming new partnerships and rebuilding previous partnerships that have fallen by the wayside.

“In order to be sustainable you need to have partnerships,” Harper said. “Over the year we’ve been working to do a couple things to address longstanding challenges. Like the economic growth that’s needed in our area, to try and focus on job creation, and get ourselves to adapt to all the things that have changed; to review our bylaws, policies, and to try and get them in the 2020’s.”

An example of partnership Harper mentioned was the Boreal Area Regional Waste Authority (BARWA), a regional waste management strategy with the Village of Codette, RM of Nipawin, RM of Connaught, and Village of Tobin Lake.

Looking ahead to 2019, some of the Town of Nipawin’s goals are to finish the water treatment plant on time and within budget in the spring, continue negotiating with other members in the Twin Lakes District Planning Commission, re-fill its economic development position, and work with the Chamber of Commerce to increase tourism and help businesses.

“We all know that change is a difficult thing, but we have a couple of choices,” Harper said. “We either take on the tasks and work collaboratively and transparently with our partners or deny that we need to make the changes and it happens anyway.”

The Town of Nipawin looks to get input from residents during an open house on Friday, Feb. 8.

 

aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow