(submitted photo/Google Maps)

By Nicole Reis

City Hall 2019 in review

The City of Meadow Lake looks back on 2019

Dec 31, 2019 | 2:00 PM

The City of Meadow Lake encountered many challenges and successes over the past year.

Acting City Manager Jessica Walters said she would describe 2019 with one word: Change.

“We had to say goodbye to some long-serving faces and also had the opportunity to welcome many new faces this year,” Walters told meadowlakeNOW.

“I temporarily stepped in as acting city manager, which has been an incredible opportunity to hear the community from a different perspective,” she said.

Walters noted the sheer number of new hires this year was more than the city has seen in the past five years combined.

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“There has been a lot of change and transition this year. We also ran two byelections which normally doesn’t happen. It’s always sad to see people go, but it’s nice to get new and different perspectives as well,” she added.

The city said goodbye to former mayor Gary Vidal when he stepped down to pursue federal politics and welcomed new mayor, Merlin Seymour as well as two new faces on council, Ron Dishko and Richard Levesque.

“We also welcomed in all new management in the parks and recreation department and saw a move toward more recreation programming initiatives. We’re really looking forward in seeing those continue to grow in the future,” Walters said.

According the Walters, the biggest change council saw in 2019 was the decision to embark on a new relationship with SaskWater which is said to begin in January 2020.

This year, the city faced operating challenges with recreation facilities partly due to age of buildings and a six-week cold snap in February.

Walters noted the city issued significantly more repair work to its infrastructure than in previous years.

“Our staff rallied around those pretty well and we didn’t see much downtime,” Walters said.

The city also saw the tear-down of its old grandstand which suffered from structural deficiencies.

2020 is the 100^th anniversary of the Stampede grounds. The city may address the revitalization of the site in the coming year.

“Overall 2019 has had many challenges, but it was also a year full of opportunity. I’m looking forward to seeing what 2020 brings,” Walters said.

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nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722