NIPAWIN — Rennie Harper, Nipawin’s mayor, said 2019 was “crazy busy” for the town.
“Under the guise of tourism I think everyone is aware the Town of Nipawin, in accordance with the Municipalities Act, assumed the responsibility of tourism in quite a big way in 2019,” she said.
Together, with discussions with the Nipawin Chamber of Commerce, the town purchased the old Chamber building, taking over tourism for the town and turning the plot of land into town reserve.
“Our tourism is staffed full-time as a general rule, we have summer students. We’ve increased our outreach through social media to tourists not only in the province but in the country itself and outside of that.”
Barry Elliott, Nipawin’s administrator, said that the town's relationship with the Chamber continues to be strong, and most recently the mayor was involved in a conversation with the Chamber where they’re committed to working together.
Harper said one of the things the town did in 2019 is a traffic study, expected to come out early in 2020.
The year was also the first year in about 15 years that Communities in Bloom was operational.
“We had huge public uptake, the people in our town, the Horticultural Society and just ordinary people in our town did lots of planting and using plants to decorate in our community.”
Nipawin received three blooms for the year.
Communities in Bloom is expected to continue into the 2020 year.
“I can’t tell you how many people did stop and say how proud they were of Nipawin and how happy they were to participate.”
Harper said the town had lobbied through 2019 for changes to Highway 35 and the Pineland Co-op and Bunge intersection.
As a direct result of that, the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure examined the stretch of highway again, and according to the mayor, are paying close attention to it.
“One of the things they have done first is put up flashing lights to warn people.”
Recreational services have expanded in the town with pickleball at the Evergreen Centre, and crokicurl at the town square.
“We have some interest in a competition with surrounding communities that also have crokicurl, so we look forward to that in 2020.”
Harper said this past summer’s Nipawin parade had the largest amount of floats in the history of the town. The town estimated that there was upwards of 2,000 people in the community on Main Street taking part in the parade and street fair.
She said she’s very proud of the parade’s success.
“When you can bring the people of your community so they can visit with each other and share a hotdog or listen to a band, I don’t think you can do anything better.”
She said it was only possible by the town working together with Handiworks, the Nipawin Exhibition Association and ordinary individuals around the community.
Earlier this year the town got a new economic development officer, Perry Trusty, who Harper said met with a number of investors.
“We’ve had companies who are wanting to come here, and I’m not going to give you specifics, but I think in 2020 you will see some things.”
Harper said that the successfully growing business sector shows that people have confidence in the community and think it’s a place to start to establish a new business.
Other additions in 2019 include improvements at the new LED lights in the Nipawin Centennial and Jubilee Arena Complex and some other buildings.
“We are looking hard in what we can do to invest in solar and green and save energy and all those kinds of things. LED lights in the rinks are a really big deal. We haven’t had them long enough to make budget comparisons, but sooner or later now we will.”
Improvements were made at the municipal airport including better signage, improved parking, and quarterly meetings with a stakeholder group.
The pool at Central Park received new change rooms in the year and the signs to the town were replaced.
“The Communities in Bloom judges commented on how lovely those signs were, how welcoming those signs were. It cost us about $20,000 or so.”
In 2020, Harper said they’re hoping to have complete functionality of all the new features for the water treatment plant.
“They’ve installed the filtration, and of course they dug up the streets so the paving still needs to get done but we’re getting ever closer to a fully functioning water treatment plant.”
Harper said partnerships are a personal priority.
“We are continuing to do things like joint community development through the Twin Lakes Planning Commission where we have nine partners. One of the things we’re talking about right now is the possibility of a heliport and we’re doing some work on that.”
As part of its disbursement of donations, earlier this in 2019 the HumboldtStrong Community Foundation gave $100,000 to the Town of Nipawin. Out of the $100,000, Nipawin is putting $70,000 towards the heliport pad and $30,000 towards the new fire truck. Neither project is currently ready to use the funds.
“A huge thank you to the Humboldt Foundation for their donation to the Town of Nipawin. It is something that we treasure.”
There is a draft of the 2020 budget, with the town attempting to keep at the national inflation rate of around 2.5 per cent.
“Municipal budgets aren’t really about rate of inflation, they’re about ensuring you can maintain the core services that your community expects,” Harper said. “We try really hard to keep those stable and increase them slightly, like keeping up with the environmental issues and the traffic studies and those sorts of things.”
Harper said the town is looking at doing some rezoning to promote smaller, new housing and receiving stakeholder input with an open house.
Additionally, the town is looking at creating an official Town of Nipawin app.
“You know when you use your cell phone you can’t really see our town website? And there are communities that have town apps, Humboldt is one.”
The app will have all the features of the website and serve to promote the town in the tourism sector.
Harper wished season’s greetings and a happy New Year to the Nipawin community.
