NIPAWIN — Nipawin is using their part of the HumboldtStrong Community Foundation donation to put into the reserves for both a heliport pad and their next fire rescue truck.
As part of its disbursement of donations, earlier this year the foundation gave $1.15 million to east central communities. Humboldt received $800,000; Tisdale, Melfort and Nipawin $100,000 each; and Zenon Park $50,000.
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.
The outline design for the heliport is expected to be completed in early 2020.
Barry Elliott, Nipawin’s administrator, said the funds will go towards construction costs.
“At this point in time there has been no approval to move ahead on any sort of construction,” Elliott said.
“The site assessment is already done, so what they’re working on now is the detailed design of the heliport and putting together a real, accurate budget for the heliport project.”
After this is made, the town will meet with their municipal partners on the project. There the decision will be made on whether they’re going to move forward on the project.
If the final decision is made to not construct the heliport, council would reconvene on how to best spend the HumboldtStrong $70,000.
Elliott said that $30,000 invested for the fire truck will serve as some savings for the eventual replacement of their current one.
“We know that the rescue truck is a critical piece of our fire department equipment and we know that it’s aging and there have been some interest in planning for its replacement,” he said.
“There was some thought that this is used at essentially every response, so it would certainly be an appropriate use of those funds.”
The most recent cost estimate the town received for a new rescue truck was at approximately $380,000.
