The former distillery in Weyburn's industrial park will again be listed on the open market after a Calgary firm, BioAg Food Products, failed to come up with the payment by Thursday's deadline.

City council insisted they acted above-board at all times with the company, which wanted to set up an ethanol production facility in the distillery plant, but when they wanted a deadline extension they did not send a representative to Weyburn to meet with the City.

This follows an earlier attempt to have an ethanol-producing company move into the facility, when Bellringer Resources took the City through a protracted period before city council finally foreclosed on them and took title of the property.

Council turned down BioAg's request for an extension to make the payment of $550,000 for the plant. The City will retain the $25,000 deposit the company made when they signed the conditional sale agreement.

"I feel, and the rest of council and administration does too, that we dealt with them above-board. We did not try and deal with them in any way that they could come back to us on. As far as I'm concerned, everything was done right, and business was business," said Mayor Don Schlosser at Monday's council meeting.

The situation was no different than if he went into a dealership and put a down-payment on a vehicle but was unable to make any further payments; the dealership would retain the deposit and resell the vehicle, said the mayor.

City commissioner Bob Smith said a different BioAg representative, Chris Houston, came into the picture late. He talked to Smith a couple of times over the phone in January and February. Mayor Schlosser said he never did talk to Houston, and noted neither he nor any representative from BioAg came to the city to meet with council when they wanted to have an extension to their deadline of March 23.

Coun. Mike Pickering agreed with the mayor that council "dealt with them in a fair and equitable manner," and said the deposit will help cover some of the city's costs in this deal.

Asked if there were any prospective buyers for the distillery plant, Mayor Schlosser said the city couldn't talk to anyone until after BioAg's deadline had passed, and expects some people will now come forward to express an interest in the property. He said the city will list the property in the near future.

The numbers of reported and actual crimes investigated by the Weyburn Police Service went down in 1999, said police Chief Bill Millar in presenting the annual report from the police department to council.

The total number of actual crimes for the year was 1,288, down from 1,501 the year before and 1,469 in 1997. These are all non-traffic complaints reported to the police which have been found to be actual crimes. There were a total of 132 unfounded crimes reported in 1999, up slightly from 128 reported the year before.

The types of crime showing a decrease include sexual assault, common assault and assault causing bodily harm, break-and-enters, thefts under $5,000, possession of stolen property and causing a disturbance. Only two areas showed an increase: arson (from four in 1998 to 12 in 1999) and trespassing at night (from 13 to 15).

Chief Millar said the police department's clearance rate slipped slightly from 57 per cent to 48 per cent, and said they will work to bring that percentage back up. The clearance rate indicates the number of actual crimes which were solved. If a crime has been investigated but the police are unable to prove who committed it, then the case is not cleared.

In offences the police department has dealt with in the court system, the total number of charges was 2,376, down 10 per cent from 2,644 the year before. Broken down into types, two areas showed an increase: Highway Traffic Act charges went up to 687 from 555, and federal drug charges went up from 11 to 24 in 1999.

The total number of impaired drivers went up in 1999 by 24 per cent, as did refusal of breath tests, 24-hour suspensions and domestic violence orders. The numbers of prohibited drivers caught behind the wheel went down by 25 per cent, as did the overall number of complaints by 10 per cent.

Reportable traffic accidents (where there was damage of $1,000 or more and/or injuries) went up from 221 to 248, while the number of people injured was down from 32 to 20.

Chief Millar said one of their most successful programs has been the mediation diversion or alternative measures program, in which 63 offenders were dealt with outside of the court room. Of this total, including 29 young offenders and 34 adults, all young offenders completed the program, while one adult returned by choice to be dealt with by the court.

Later in council, a request from Chief Millar to buy a specially-built police patrol bicycle, helmets and clothing was approved by council ahead of final approval of the budget, in order to allow the order to be placed for the bike.

Chief Millar said he is hopeful this program will help to cut down on the reports of vandalism in city parks, particularly Jubilee Park, as well as associated problems such as broken glass in the parks.

The city police would also be helped if people reported acts of vandalism when they see them occur or find evidence the vandalism has happened, said the chief. He noted a recent instance of cars being vandalized at the Colosseum during hockey games on March 19 and 23, which weren't told to the police until well afterward.

City council agreed to a request from Grace United Church to allow them to use the old fire hall as a temporary storage space once they begin renovations and construction on their addition.

The council would not allow the space to be given to the church free of charge, suggesting a rate of $200 a month for use of the three bays. The church asked for the space as they will be demolishing the old choir loft and chancel area, and will need to store some of their pews, furniture and the church's pipe organ.

Coun. Debra Button said the city should allow the church to have free use of the hall since they are non-profit organization, and the addition will be an added benefit to the community.

"Surprisingly enough, I agree with Coun. Button. I think the same kind of thing, that this is a charitable organization. We should give them the use of the space," said Coun. Pickering.

"I'm not certain about $200, but I do think we should charge something, as we do have other facilities in the community that rent out areas for their livelihood," said Coun. Ray Hamm, adding giving it to the church for free might set a precedent for other people or groups claiming charitable status.

Coun. Button asked about a letter which appeared in the March 22 issue of the Review from Claire Kuhn, protesting the cutting down of fir trees on Hartney Avenue.

Mayor Schlosser said this issue came before council last fall, and it was decided at the time to cut down the trees after they had been trimmed back and looked unsightly.

He said the trees weren't diseased, but were cut back for paving crews. As they didn't look very presentable afterwards, the city talked to the property owners and decided to cut the trees down, and will plant 12 to 15-foot ash trees in their place this spring.

Council approved spending around $10,000 for new dispatch equipment to serve the fire and police departments, along with fire departments in outlying municipalities, once the province-wide 911 service comes into effect.

The city had received approval for a grant of around $25,000 towards the equipment, with the city to provide the balance of the estimated total cost of $35,000.

The equipment will include a recording device for incoming calls and radio transmissions, installation of a dispatch program on the police computer, installation of a paging encoder in the fire hall which can operated from a remote site, and installation of a fire department radio in the dispatch centre. The pagers will now be alpha-numeric, not tone and voice as is currently used.

This will require the purchase of new pagers, but the cost will be about the same as repairing the old pagers, Fire Chief Denis Pilon said in a report to council.

The grant came under the Emergency Services Telecommunications Program, which provides $2 per capita for cities up to a maximum of 75 per cent of the cost of equipment.

The council also gave the go-ahead for negotiations with area towns to begin to provide them with a dispatch service at a cost of $500 per year.

The city has received written requests from the Stoughton-Tecumseh Fire Department and Yellow Grass Fire Department, with verbal expressions of interest from Pangman, Ceylon and Radville fire departments.

No official word on the start-up date of the province-wide 911 service has come through yet, but Chief Pilon said he has heard unofficially that 911 may be delayed until as late as October of this year. Earlier this year, provincial officials said the service would be up and in place by the end of March.