Citizens have had a chance to have their say at the most recent Your Voice.
On Thursday, May 5th, citizens were welcomed at College Park School to discuss city projects, express concerns and ask questions of City Councilors and Administration at the event.
One of the booths was all about the City’s land division and what parts of the city are currently being developed and/or have lots for sale.
“The City’s land division is open for business. We have lots of product for sale,” says Don Stang, Director of Community Services. “The City of Lloydminster, on the Alberta side for residential, we have our Parkview Estates development. On the Saskatchewan side, we have lots available in Colonial Park. From an industrial/commercial perspective, we have our Sask industrial, which is 39th Ave and north of Highway 16, and then in the northwest area of the city, we have our Hill Industrial subdivision.”
Another one of the stations was set up for people to give feedback on sticky notes, in several categories regarding the Municipal Development Plan.
“The City is just going down the first step of doing the review so this was definitely the best opportunity to get out there, see if we can gather some feedback from the people that come out to the Your Voice event, and so far we’ve got some pretty good results. We’ve got some people filling out some surveys and of course, putting some things down on the board, on the sticky note side of things there,” says Terry Burton, Director of Planning and Engineering with the City.
Burton explained that it was simple and accessible way for give their feedback on a variety of topics, which is why they chose to use the “sticky note method.” He also says he’s seen a lot of feedback regarding transportation in the city, parks, walkability, and trails.
In addition, attendees were able to pick up a hardcopy of the 2015 Report to the Community.
“Well, what it is really is a synopsis of the year past. It kind of touches on the highlights and it also reflects the Strategic Plan that was initiated early in 2015 by our Council, and Administration has followed up on that plan. It’s a great pictorial and has a lot of statistical data and facts in it. It just shares a little bit of the highlights from the past year,” explains Mayor Rob Saunders.
The book contains a month-by-month breakdown of the events, initiatives, and major, impacting Council decisions from last year as well as the data collected from last year’s census.
The booklet is available at all City facilities and online at lloydminster.ca/communityreports
Prior to Your Voice this time around, the City held one-on-one discussion sessions with citizens to specifically discuss the proposed Lloydminster Utility Corporation (LUC) and answer questions.
The person who conducted the individual meetings was also on-hand at Your Voice to explain the same topic. Deputy CAO, Kirk Morrison, said that the discussion sessions went very well and the feedback was diverse and was brought forward at Your Voice.
Morrison also noted an error in Administration’s ways in terms of how the City rolled out the proposal for the LUC to the public.
“We could have done a better job up front, talking about the need for the project. I think we’re taking a little bit of a pause to come back to, ‘why do we have to do this project at all?’ And so that’s definitely going to be a focus, talking about the history of our wastewater treatment, and what are the steps that we’ve taken to improve the system that we have. At the end of the day, our current system isn’t meeting the requirements, and the next investment in order to meet our obligations is jumping to a mechanical plants, which is a very expensive proposition.”
Despite the topic being on the list for Your Voice, according to Morrison, the individual sessions were held for people who might feel more comfortable asking their questions in that setting, without a crowd.