Thompson Mayor Colleen Smook highlighted positive developments that have taken place in the city and region since she first won the job in 2018 as well as the ongoing challenges it faces in an address to business owners and representatives at the Citrus Lounge on April 17.
In a wide-ranging speech that touched on everything from infrastructure, including five-year road and water/sewage system plans supported by the provincial and federal governments, to the demand for services such as dry cleaning in the city, Smook also dicussed hot button issues like crime, the water utility and the need for a public washroom to accommodate people who have nowhere else to go.
Though the construction of a new pool to replace the Norplex, which has now been shut down for more than four years, has not yet been tendered, nor the overall financing of it worked out, or at least not publicly, the mayor said she understands why it is a priority for many people.
“I understand the passion and how badly we need it,” Smook said. ”We have lost people from town because of it. We are going to get that on the go.”
She also admitted that some new ventures, such as the relocation of services formerly provided at the Thompson homeless shelter downtown to the healing centre at the corner of Station Road and Princeton Drive, have merely shifted old problems around and that more needs to be done to address root causes of unwanted behaviours.
“In the past couple of weeks I’ve had a couple of letters from businesses in the area that have been very affected by the negative impact of that. So I just want you to know that we’re dealing with those issues.”
In a question-and-answer session following the Smook’s speech, Thompson McDonald’s operator Ouzzy Traore said that Thompson has a very low bar for what kind of behaviour is acceptable in public, pointing out the gathering spot between his restaurant and CIBC that is littered with empty alcohol bottles as a result of its use as a public drinking spot. He also said that spending so much time dealing with security and safety concerns is draining.
“It’s really, really frustrating for business owners,” he said. “It just takes away the joy of running a business.”
Traore said the city also needs to do a better job of public relations and communicating good things about the city to balance and counteract unflattering information.
Communication was similarly stressed by Volker Beckmann, giving an anecdote about another resident who has called the city eight or nine times about an issue and not received a response. The Highway 6 lobbying group seeking to make the main transportation link to Thompson safer also had trouble getting a meeting with city officials, he said, as did the proponents of an airship research centre who were seeking to meeting the with Thompson Community Development Corporation, the city’s arm’s-length economic development agency.
“For heaven’s sake, talk to groups that are raising these questions,” he said. “We all love our community and want to make it safer and cleaner and better overall.”
Deputy mayor Kathy Valentino briefly took the microphone to say she wanted communication to be a two-way street, with the business community and the city each keeping the other up-to-date on their initiatives.
“It takes all of you as business owners to be part of the plan,” she said.
Asked by Thompson Chamber of Commerce president Ethel Timbang about plans to deal with crime, Smook and city manager Antbony McInnis said the longer-term goals are guided by the community safety and well-being strategy but that more immediate efforts are also being made, such as working with Thompson RCMP to adjust the detachment’s priorities.
“The direction has been that RCMP will be spending more time downtown intervening in the issues that they’re seeing,” McInnis said. “We’re going to be meeting with them monthly to see if that’s happening and if it’s meeting people’s needs.”
At the outset of the meeting, arranged by the chamber, Timbang said her goal is for the organization to be an active advocate and to work with the city.
“The chamber is a working chamber that is willing to sit down and collaborate to make the city a healthy place for investors,” she said prior to Smook’s speech.
