With summer right around the corner, Rec Director Brenda Redman is hopeful the community will be able to use the pool soon.
The pool is set to open July 1.
In the meantime, Redman says her staff is working hard to make the Town of Esterhazy beautiful with the weather getting better every week.
Redman says her student summer staff has been busy watering flowers and cleaning up the town while the rec staff has been cutting grass and cleaning up the cemetery.
The Esterhazy Regional Park opened up the playground to the public on Friday with guidelines to follow from the Government of Saskatchewan.
Farmers market
On June 5, the Town of Esterhazy allowed for the farmers market to return in the parking lot of the S.N. Boreen Centre while following proper government guidelines on physical distancing and outdoor gatherings.
Rec Director Brenda Redman says it went well with everybody being very respectful of the guidelines and the community was happy to be able to have an outdoor social gathering — with distancing — in some capacity.
Going forward the Esterhazy farmers market will continue every Friday through August in the arena parking lot as long as proper government guidelines continue to be followed.
Grad parade
The council passed a motion to allow for a local resident — and parent of a graduating student — to plan a parade for the graduating students of Esterhazy High School.
With the government allowing for graduation parades following proper distancing guidelines, the council thought this would be a nice gesture for the students.
The Covid-19 pandemic has taken away regular graduation ceremonies and many graduating classes are implementing some sort of celebration that follows all health and safety guidelines.
This will not be done through the school division, but rather through the parents of the students. The resident needed approval through the town council because of traffic bylaws.
New garbage cans around town
Having purchased five concrete garbage cans in September to put around the town to help with dog waste, Rec Director Brenda Redman says they’ve been placed around town.
The Town of Esterhazy purchased the garbage cans on the 2018-2019 grade five classes recommendation to help keep the community clean.
“Last year we had a group of kids from the school division — in grade five — come to us and we asked them what they would like to see in the community and they thought more garbage cans would make it cleaner around town,” said Acting Administrator Mike Thorley.
“This has sort of been a year in progress and now we’ve put them up. Brenda (Redman) put them up in the spots around town that we feel are necessary to help everybody in the community.
“They’re in areas around town with lots of kids and potential for a lot of garbage,” said Thorley.
Sign not approved
At the regular Esterhazy town council meeting on Wednesday, the council passed a motion not to allow for a commercial businesses sign to encroach on town property.
The sign would project out over the sidewalk — town property — and people would have to walk under it. The town doesn’t allow for this with any other businesses in town.
“They requested to have a new sign put up at their business, but we would have to enter into an encroachment agreement with them because it would be over top our sidewalk,” said Acting Administrator Mike Thorley. “It was a swinging hanging sign and the municipality doesn’t want to be a part of that unless it’s a full structure. We’ve only done it one other time in recent history, but it was a full structure. It would have to be on their property to do it, it cannot go over top our property.”
The council was in agreement that if they allow this for one business then they would have to allow it for all businesses that wanted it and that could cause issues.
Another concern was if there was an incident with the sign on town property it would cause for liability problems and would fall under another bylaw.
With this specific situation, the business would be able to set the sign up so that it hangs over its own property instead of the town’s.
Landfill cleanup
With a need to cleanup the town landfill, Acting Administrator Mike Thorley is arranging to have it cleaned up by volunteers from the summer staff, rec staff, and public works.
Both Thorley and Councillor Vern Petracek have wanted to get a landfill cleanup plan set for some time because it hasn’t had an organized cleanup since 2002.
No date is set for the official cleanup, but it will be taken care of in the near future.
Garbage pickup negotiations
The council passed a motion for the Town of Esterhazy to enter into contract negotiations with Hozjan Sanitation Services for garbage pickup.
“We don’t have a number on it yet, but we are going to work on an agreement with Hozjan Sanitation Services for the next two years for garbage pickup,” said Acting Administrator Mike Thorley.
