Mayor David Gillan at the State of the City address Wednesday. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

2024 State of the City Address

Crime Severity Index, need for growth, increasing inclusivity among State of City highlights

Apr 3, 2024 | 4:27 PM

The Crime Severity Index, growing the community, and making the city and region more inclusive were some of the key points highlighted in the State of the City address in North Battleford today.

Mayor David Gillan gave his report of the past year at the Dekker Centre’s Lawrence Hall during the luncheon talk.

One of the highlights of the event was the city’s work as the lead in a conference with 10 other communities in four Western provinces, doing what it can to challenge the Crime Severity Index (CSI) released in Statistics Canada’s report each year.

The communities together met with the RCMP and Statistics Canada to assert that the index unfairly, negatively skews smaller communities with populations closer to the 10,000 threshold in the report.

They are asking Statistics Canada to postpone the release of this year’s report until further discussions take place about the merit of the findings, and how they are assessed.

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“We will continue to work on that,” Gillan said. “Our group continues to have dialogue with Stats Can, and chiefs of police. We’ll see where that goes… I hope we can find a new way of looking at crime statistics. Let’s put it that way. The only thing we’re saying in public now is to halt the release [of the new index] while we discuss. That’s the only thing we’re asking for right now.”

Communities across four provinces came together to participate in a conference in February tackling the Crime Severity Index (CSI) report. (Submitted photo/City of North Battleford)

Growing community

The mayor alluded to the need for more growth in the city. He noted one new development that will be good for everyone in the region will be Red Pheasant Cree Nation’s new urban reserve retail plaza, called Eagles Landing, in North Battleford, that is expected to open this summer.

He’s also pleased to see North West College’s new learning centre site at the Frontier Centre, as the college continues to grow to accommodate its increasing student enrolment.

Plans ahead

During his address, the mayor also announced he won’t be running in the upcoming election for the city again. Instead, he plans to focus on other pursuits.

“I have a career and I want to go back to it before I’m too old,” he said. “It’s a great city, and I’m sure it will be in good hands when I’m done. I’m empty-nesting soon with my family, and I want to look at all the options in my life.”

Looking back on the past four years, the mayor said some of his highlights include a major focus in his term to take a regional perspective.

He said the key point in his address is, even though the city is a separate municipality, it’s important to “think regionally.”

Inclusivity theme

“If we stay in our silo, we’re never going to meet our full potential,” Gillan said. “It’s something that I pushed a lot, since I’ve been the mayor. ‘Inclusivity’ – I use this word a lot and I use ‘regionalism’ a lot. As the [former] finance director, I understand the financial pressure of how do we build a new rink, how does the Town of Battleford get a new regional care centre. How do we continue to have the services and facilities we have here. How do we grow, because I truly believe growth will help us be able to pay for some of these costs.”

He maintains he’s both passionate about everything regionalism means, and working together.

“If you think of that as an umbrella, everything else I’ve done as a mayor somehow fits under there someplace,” Gillan said. “Whether it’s economic development, or community safety or whatever, it seems to fit under the same umbrella, which is: Let’s work together, and then we can solve anything. I truly believe that. Everyone knows: Many hands make light work… It’s true.”

He noted the provincial and federal governments have a limited amount of funds to divide up, so if the communities stay together as a region and jointly attempt to attain money for projects from provincial and federal grants as a united front, they will have better success.

“It makes for a much strong application,” Gillan said. “Different levels of government, they’re attracted to this… We work together. We also work together with our First Nations, and our Métis citizens as well, because they also as sovereign government have lobbying opportunities as well. So, the more we work together, I think the possibilities are endless.”

Looking ahead

The city plans to hold an open house in the fall, so people can come and ask questions about what skills are needed to run in the Nov. 13 municipal election for a position as city councillor, or even for the next city mayor’s job, so they have a better idea about the work involved.

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsNOW