Thompson’s new council zipped through the first regular meeting of the 2018-2022 term Nov. 13, getting through the agenda in less than 45 minutes, including a public hearing that was held before the actual council meeting got started.
The public hearing was to receive any arguments for or against bylaw 1973-2018 to amend the zoning bylaw to change where bus terminals can be located. Now, they will be acceptable in all commercial zones except those zoned commercial neighbourhood as well as in the industrial light zone. No one came forward to register any concerns about the change, and city manager Anthony McInnis said that no written objections had been received in writing from the public and that the provincial government’s municipal planner had no concerns either.
“By … amending the bylaw, which is in the way, I call it … cutting the red tape so we are open to business,” said Coun. Duncan Wong. “We want people to start creating businesses, new businesses.”
The bylaw took effect after passing second and third reading.
Council also heard a report from the development review committee, which noted that $160 million in capital investments were planned for Thompson in 2018, including $120 million worth of private sector investments.
Wong said the report was good news because it showed that people were putting their money into Thompson while Coun, Les Ellsworth noted that about half of the $160 million was spent by Vale to complete the concentrate loadout facility needed to transition from a fully integrated mining operation to a mining and milling only operation.
Ellsworth also commented on a letter from the provincial Justice Department deputy minister Dave Wright regarding the province’s Strategic Municipal Investment Fund, which noted that, while the overall funding remained at the same level as in 2017, some municipalities would see grant amounts change due to adjustments made to census population numbers used to calculate per capita payments.
“Do we know, was there a change in the census amounts?” Ellsworth asked. “Do we have lower numbers or higher numbers or we don’t know?”
McInnis said the impact on the funding were unknown so far.
“They’re saying to us there’s changes coming but we haven’t been told what the impacts of those changes will be yet,” he said.
Mayor Colleen Smook said even if the population hasn’t gone down, Thompson could see less money if its percentage of the provincial population had decreased
“It’s not always positive for Thompson if they base it on provincial numbers,” she said.
Council also received a letter from acting Department of Families deputy minister Jill Perron in response to a September letter from former mayor Dennis Fenske requesting re-establishment of the Street Reach North program in Thompson that works with missing children and those at risk of being sexually exploited. Perron said the province is requesting proposals to evaluate the effectiveness of the Street Reach program and that how the program is delivered in the future will depend on that evaluation, though she did note that the province is supporting joint programs between Street Reach Winnipeg and the Thompson RCMP in the interim. The first of those ran Sept. 20-21 and another is planned for Dec. 13-14.
“I did a ride-along with the RCMP and it surprised me how much of our resources are tied up into the missing youth that they get the phone calls for after 10 p.m. for any of their youth homes,” said Coun. Kathy Valentino. “This Street reach program used to have a full-time program here in Thompson and it hasn’t now for a while so I would hope that it would be the direction of his council to continue advocating for that. We need to advocate that this program is more than just twice a year in September and December. It needs to be a program back here that is located here in the City of Thompson.”
Council also passed a resolution approving the attendance of councillors Ellsworth, Brian Lundmark, Earl Colbourne and McInnis at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) convention Nov. 26-28. The cost for all of them to attend will be approximately $10,500. Coun. Jeff Fountain also intends to attend the convention at his own expense.
