Starting out the second half of a marathon January meeting, Councillor Parrot reports on the residency program for new doctors in the community, and Councilor Sisley gives the most recent Handivan usage numbers as well as reminds everyone that this year’s Winter Festival has been moved to the Sunday of the Louis Riel long weekend and will include evening activities.

Manager of Operations Denis Saquet is, as he says, deep into budgeting for the new year. The new water line project to service the hospital has started construction as of this month, and the training centre is now complete and in use, although the grand opening was postponed due to winter weather.

His main focus at this meeting, however, was reminding residents once again not to dump grease, which includes any cooking oils, down residential drains. This time he’s able to put some numbers to the problem, indicating that many staff hours are being spent on sewer servicing, and a rapid response vehicle that can do emergency work to clear the pipes will cost taxpayers around $600,000. The new development on the old CN property, which is only a couple of years old, is already seeing plugged pipes. Saquet is suggesting much stronger measures to ensure that residents are taking the problem seriously, as it is causing a great deal of damage and costing the town a significant amount of money. NACTV also plans to do a deeper dive into this problem and welcomes viewer contributions to that upcoming program.

The Town applied to the Province in 2014 for a speed limit change on PTH 16 starting east of town at the HyLife processing plant, requesting that the speed limit for that stretch be dropped to 80 km/hour from the current 100. When the request was denied, the town resubmitted in 2020. The Province has now completed their review and has once again denied the change, however they have indicated a willingness to review it again when the new hospital and high school are closer to completion. The hospital is scheduled to open in 2025, and the high school will follow in 2027. Both will lead to substantially increased traffic volumes along the stretch of highway in question.

A joint venture between the Town of Neepawa and Hylife for an industrial wastewater treatment facility back in 2009 has reached the end of its life cycle. The partnership allowed HyLife to access approximately $13 million dollars in federal, provincial, and municipal funding towards the $25.5 million price tag for the facility. Now that more than 10 years of continuous operation have passed, they are preparing to conclude the agreement and convey all interests the town has in the facility to HyLife.

Back in 2004, Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure created a PTH 16 Neepawa Functional Design Study outlining future development along the highway that passes through the town. Because of this, every development along Highway 16 references this plan and a certain portion of land is set aside to allow for that future development. While the province is not proceeding with the plan at this time, the Town of Neepawa will be putting forward two lots of land in the industrial park for the Province to purchase if they wish them to remain available for the PTH 16 Functional Plan. We have seen this plan referenced several times over the past few months, including the recent Active Transportation Study, infrastructure development such as the water lines and access roads to the new hospital, and in the new development bylaws for the Municipality of North Cypress-Langford which borders Neepawa at Highway 16. For anyone interested in learning more about this functional plan, it is available in full on the Town of Neepawa website.

Finally, the Town has set its new campground and swimming pool rates for 2024. These include several changes to swimming pass categories and age ranges. Because the bathing load, which limits the number of people allowed in the pool at a given time, includes anyone in the pool area including the deck, changes have been made to include everyone in the rate structure regardless of age or whether or not they are intending to swim.

Also covered were the RCMP quarterly report, the town’s waste reduction rebate, an appeal for funds from Stars Air Ambulance, a Council appointment to Westlake Employment, the 2024 Westman Regional Library levy, some bylaw changes around the new policies and rates at the public pool, the regular financial report, appointment of the weed control supervisor, sale of the old fire hall lot on first avenue, and the 2024 tax sale set for November 6.