(File Photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Melfort City Council

Melfort council approves KVC for mass COVID-19 vaccine clinics

Mar 9, 2021 | 10:37 AM

The City of Melfort held their regular council meeting on Monday discussing a number of topics from vaccine clinics in Melfort, to drug houses, and an addition to some budget deliberations.

Vaccine Clinics

The Kerry Vickar Centre in Melfort has been approved as a site for mass vaccine clinics ran by the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

The City of Melfort and the SHA have entered an agreement that begins on March 15, and runs until June 30, or longer if needed. Mayor Glenn George said while a pandemic wasn’t seen coming, things like this are what the KVC was built for.

“I think it’s great that we’re getting to a stage [in the pandemic] where we’re going to need it,” he said. “I’m glad we have a big enough place for it.”

FIRST-DEGREE MURDER

Two charged with first-degree murder in death of man at Saulteaux First Nation

23h ago

POLICING

'Perseverance': Battlefords RCMP commander reflects on 2024 and looks ahead to 2025

Jan 03, 2025

Support and empathy

Honouring Grief and Tradition: Supporting Indigenous Families with Compassion

Jan 03, 2025

In the agreement, it states the SHA will be paying $7,500 per month to be using the facility, the gymnasium to be exact. The revenue would total upwards of $25,000 for the city if the SHA only uses the facility until June 30. George said while revenue isn’t massive in comparison to past years, it’s huge when comparing a ‘COVID month’ to ‘COVID month.’ A memo from the city stated the average revenue from the facility over the last four months was just over $3,000.

With the SHA having use of the gymnasium at the KVC for a few months, that has a trickledown effect to other bookings and user groups. George said the city will work with the SHA, and vice versa.

“And they’ve agreed to work with us over the few things that we have and that we need it for,” George told northeastNOW. “And we’ve agreed to work with them all the way too, it’s a very mutual agreement.”

Activities such as the walking program are expected to move to the Northern Lights Palace in the meantime, and some activities including softball will also be able to use the ice surface at the Northern Lights Palace as they would normally use the KVC for early season practices before the snow melts.

The SHA has yet to say when the first clinic will actually take place in Melfort.

Drug Houses

Meanwhile, the City of Melfort and council have received some complaints about what are possibly “drug houses” in Melfort.

George said there has been more than one complaint on numerous houses that are suspected drug houses. He said there is some dialogue between the city and the RCMP.

“Police are working on it,” George said. “And we’re going to have a meeting with them and see if there’s any way we can help them.”

George added he does believe there is a drug problem in the city and he and the City of Melfort want to make sure they are doing whatever they can do to curb the drug problem in the area.

Budget Deliberations

While going through the minutes of the March 4 budget deliberations, Councillor Trent Mitchell proposed adding another scenario for council to add to the deliberations for next meeting.

The scenario would be to look at a 2.72 per-cent tax increase. Mitchell said it would be a 1.72 per cent increase for cost of living and then another one per cent to help fund the deficit.

The other two scenarios being looked at are a 1.72 per cent tax increase, and a two per-cent tax increase.

Council has not yet made a date for their next meeting for budget talks.

–

mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6