Mayors feeling positive about future for the Battlefords

“It’s not to take us through the problems everyone is having, because we always have problems, but to showcase some of the possibilities for the future, and some of the exciting things that are happening,” added Williams. “I think both Mayor Bater and Mayor Leslie did a fabulous job at doing that.”

Mayor Ames Leslie hopes by speaking to guests to be able to show more of what the town has to offer today and into the future. He added the town and city have forged good working relationships.

“I think it’s long overdue,” he added. “The city and town have not always had the best relations when it comes to working on similar projects or joining together to help both taxpayers of both communities,” he said, “I’m definitely respectful of what Mayor Bater and his council have done to help bridge that relationship with myself and the council of the Town of Battleford.”

Leslie spoke about the Battleford population increase and how that might impact the future.

“It’s our council’s time in the town of Battlefords to help continue that growth,” he said. “We’re roughly about 12 per cent in growth. Thirteen per cent in growth is required to hit the 5,000 people status, which is that threshold of city. Is that something we can obtain in the next five years? Is that something we went to obtain …? [These] are discussions council will have to address, and look to see what that means.”

Both Ames Leslie and Ryan Bater said replacing aging infrastructure is a big challenge for the two municipalities.

During his address Leslie spoke about development in the town, including plans for a new park that is expected to be completed this summer.

“I think anytime we can add an avenue of recreation for the youth and the families of our community it’s tremendous,” he said.

North Battleford Mayor Ryan Bater said the state of the city of North Battleford is strong.

“We’re achieving great things right now,” he said. “We have a lot of great things on the horizon. Commercial development is progressing very well. We’re seeing significant development downtown. That is really the centre-piece of what is going to be happening this summer.”

He added the 2018 Winter Games will bring people from throughout the province to the city and will help boost the economy, as a bonus for the near future.

The city also expects to see a four-screen cinema and a separate one-screen cinema coming shortly that will be a boon to the economy.

“We do have challenges,” Bater added. “We have challenges in the area of community safety. We have a massive infrastructure deficit, and we need to work with our regional partners including the town of Battleford on addressing a lot of those [issues] – especially the safety initiative.”

Following the meeting, Mayor Bater said he feeling positive about the future of the city.

He added the downtown master plan to revitalize the downtown is moving along well.

“I’m very excited about what is going to be happening downtown this year,” he said. “I think 2017 and 2018 are going to be the years where people say the downtown turned around and where we made the downtown great again.”

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW

by Angela Brown

Mayors feeling positive about future for the Battlefords

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