Snow removal in the City of Weyburn will stay at its current level for now, with the city engineer to have discretion how to clear city streets if there is another snowfall before the end of the calendar year.

The question of how snow-clearing should be handled was raised by engineer Bob Kinash, as the snow removal costs are significantly higher than what was budgeted due to the unusually large snowfalls in November.

The city had $37,000 available for snow removal going into this winter, but that was quickly eaten up with two large snow storms, one on Nov. 1 and the second on Nov. 6, which dumped 96 centimetres, or 38 inches, of snow. The cost of snow removal since Nov. 1 is approaching $120,000, Kinash told council.

Some of the high costs were attributed to cleaning the downtown core streets four times, and pushing snow back from exposed streets such as Fifth Avenue North, Washington Drive and Porter Bay.

Kinash suggested Weyburn could try the same method as is used in Regina and Saskatoon, where snow in residential areas is left to pack down.

"We've tried reduced service here before and received several complaints due to the icy and rutted streets," said Kinash.

Many council members spoke against just leaving the snow to pack down in residential areas, including Coun. Ray Hamm.

"One of the things we can be proud of are our street-cleaning services. What we've experienced this year is an anomaly. We've had other years when we've had a surplus in snow removal, so it does even out," he said.

Asked if streets develop more potholes when the snow is packed down to ice, Kinash said potholes are caused more by freezing and thawing of water and snow which usually occurs in February and March.

Mayor Don Schlosser said on Friday alone he fielded five calls from the community saying residential streets should be graded.

"I told them everytime you say that you have to raise taxes to offset the costs, but they don't want to hear that," he said.

Coun. Dick Michel suggested a snow removal fund be set up to handle more unusual years, but Mayor Schlosser said the city would end up with all kinds of funds for various purposes.

One of the areas that requested blading of the street was Ash Drive, but Mayor Schlosser said it would be unreasonable to bow to a request of that sort.

"If we do Ash Drive, then we would have to do every single residential street in Weyburn. That's my honest feeling, and I have a hard time justifying that kind of expense," said the mayor, adding residents would not find the rutting so bad if they would slow their speeds down on city streets.

Council approved a request from the Fire Department to provide dispatch services to smaller area fire departments as part of the province-wide enhanced 911 service.

Weyburn upgraded its dispatching equipment with the advent of province-wide 911 service, and the fire department is transferring its dispatching to the Weyburn Police Service. The South Central Health District will be pulling out of the dispatch service, as they have obtained the services of a company in Yorkton.

In order to accommodate smaller communities, which aren't large enough to handle dispatch services themselves, the city looked at their system to see if it could handle the dispatching needs of other towns, and it was determined the service could be provided without requiring any extra manpower on Weyburn's part.

An agreement has been signed with those communities interested for a fee of $500 a year. Weyburn did not approach any community, but took requests from communities in the area, and turned down requests from those communities felt to be too far out of the local area.

The agreement has been signed with the Town of Yellow Grass, Stoughton-Tecumseh Fire Board, Village of Pangman and RM of Norton, Town of Radville and RM of Laurier, Town of Ogema, and Villages of Ceylon and Minton. All communities except Minton will purchase a pager and encoder system that is compatible with Weyburn's system; Minton will continue to use their town siren as a means of notification to fire fighters. The siren can be activated from any remote location in the province.

Asked why the health district is moving its dispatch centre, city comptroller Stan Runne said all of the health districts have gone to two or three dispatch services in the province, located in Yorkton or Prince Albert.

Coun. Debra Button asked if there is any insurance liability to the city for taking on the dispatch services for other communities. The answer wasn't available, but Mayor Schlosser assured her the administration would look into the question for her.

Council gave conditional approval to Home Hardware to build an addition to their business, but it will be subject to approval by the Development Appeal Board.

Home Hardware made a request to build an additional 1,680 square feet onto the business on Third Street just south of Highway 39; the addition would be a 24-foot by 70-foot addition on the southeast corner of the existing building.

The store is located just south of the downtown core zone, and is in a service commercial zone under which retail stores are a discretionary use, thereby requiring approval by city council.

Council was told this proposal would not meet the zoning requirements as the front of the addition would come within one foot of the front property line, so it was recommended the applicant take the proposal to the Development Appeal Board, which can relax the regulations to allow the development to go ahead.

Runne said the downtown core only extends as far south as Railway Avenue, with fire regulations playing a big part in which area can fall under this zoning district.

The deadline for the city's request to have the former Eddie's Restaurant location cleaned up was reached on Monday, and a number of contractors have offered their services to the city.

Mayor Schlosser said the owners of the restaurant had until Dec. 11 to have the site cleaned up with safety hazards removed, which was not done.

Prices have been obtained from a number of contractors in Weyburn, and the city will decide in the next day or so who will get the job, and whether the job will be done now or in the spring.

In other business at council:

Les Bakaluk was awarded the tender to salvage metal from the Weyburn landfill, for which he will pay the city $20 per ton. His bid was accepted on the condition that the metal scrap not be relocated to his business location on First Avenue, as this business location is before provincial court because the city contends it's in contravention of the city's zoning bylaw. There was 50 tons of scrap metal taken out of the landfill last year, and over the last 11 years, there has been a total of 573 tons of scrap metal removed.

Council approved the sale of 7.23 acres of land on Highway 39 West, between Queen Street and Gray Street, to NAI Commercial Real Estate for a price of $438,619.

A Saskatoon firm, Envirotec Waste Management, was awarded the tender to remove used oil, used oil filters and containers from the ecocentre collection depot at the city's landfill. They have agreed to pay the city $2,461 to remove about 25,000 litres of used oil, 15 drums of filters and 1,200 kilograms of used containers.

The city has collected 93.2 per cent of property taxes as of the end of November, a collection rate which is on par with the last two years (93.5 per cent last year, and 94.7 per cent in 1998). Collection of tax arrears is up over the last two years, as 44.5 per cent of arrears have been collected so far, compared to 34 per cent last year, and 28 per cent in 1998.

Building permits issued so far in 2000 are down quite a bit from last year's levels, with a total of 75 permits issued as of the end of November worth $4.9 million, compared to 103 permits worth $10.2 million a year ago. There have been 15 dwelling units created in Weyburn this year worth $939,500, compared to 16 dwelling units created last year worth $1.4 million.

Council was told that booth sales for next summer's Oil and Gas Show are progressing, with the Sports Arena booths 75 per cent sold, the Colosseum 92 per cent sold, and the outdoor spaces over 80 per cent sold so far.