City council voted on Monday night to proceed with an addition and renovation to the Federal Building to upgrade it as the new City Hall, at an estimated cost of $1.5 million.

The council also wants the price to do an appraisal of the current city hall building and the Signal Hill Arts Centre building, before deciding on the fate of those two buildings.

The motion to proceed with the renovation to the Federal Building passed 5-2, with councillors Mike Pickering and Gary Goski voting against it.

Both councillors objected to the higher estimated price tag for the project, which the facilities committee originally hoped would have been closer to $1 million.

Coun. Ray Hamm, chair of the facilities committee, said the Federal Building was bought to house City Hall, and as such should be fixed up to present the best first impression to visitors of the city.

"City Hall should be a building with dignity and some presence. Very often it's the first contact people have with the city, and as such it should present an image of a progressive community, somewhere where things are happening," said Coun. Hamm.

As for the higher estimated cost, Coun. Hamm said most of the first million dollars is in place, and the city just needs to find remaining $500,000.

Coun. Pickering said the city is actually $130,000 short of the first million, so the city would need to come up with $630,000 more.

"I'd like to see us spend no more than $1 million, and I'm not even sure I like that figure," said Coun. Pickering.

Coun. Debra Button was in favour of renovating the Federal Building for the same reason mentioned by Coun. Hamm.

"Looking at the building as it is, it's a nice post office but it's not a nice city hall. I'm wondering if we can take this figure down," she said.

Coun. Hamm said discussions have been held with the architect about lowering some of the costs, such as for mechanical and electrical work which committee members felt was very high.

Mayor Don Schlosser said one of the sources of funding will be from the Canada-Saskatchewan infrastructure grant program, which should provide Weyburn with $166,000 a year for three years. Asked if this was a sure thing for the city, the mayor indicated it likely is. Later in the meeting, council passed a resolution to make a formal application for the infrastructure grant.

In addition, the mayor said the city hopes to get at least $200,000 from the old distillery plant or more, which would also offset the higher cost.

Coun. Dick Michel said he felt the city was getting a very good deal to get a new City Hall for $1.5 million, noting it would cost $3.5-4 million to build a brand new structure.

The idea of getting a new City Hall isn't a new concept either, said Coun. Bill Rudachyk.

"This has been on the plans for a long, long time. Back in 1982 we had discussions that we would need to address this issue. Keep in mind this is a facility that we will want to last for another 40 to 50 years. This is a substantially better situation than putting out $3.5-4 million for a new building," he said.

Mayor Schlosser also noted plans were drawn up in 1986 for extensive renovations to the current City Hall at a cost of $788,000 (in 1986 dollars). City Hall has roughly 14,000 square feet, so the cost would have been around $55 a square foot. With this new proposal, the Federal Building has an area of 26,000 square feet, and the cost breaks down to $58 a square foot, only slightly higher than the 1986 proposal, he said.

In addition, all of the City Hall staff will be on one floor in the Federal Building, as opposed to spread out over three floors as they currently are, said the mayor.

"We've been in this building for some 90 years. I don't think this building was chintzed upon when they built it," said Coun. Hamm, adding that the city should also be looking to the future generations with this project.

The future sale of the old distillery depends a lot on luck, said Coun. Pickering, so he couldn't justify taking that sort of a chance to spend this amount of money.

The mayor recently visited Lloydminster, where they built a new City Hall for $4-5 million, and said, "I feel this is very, very reasonable, and I'm sure the citizens would be a lot happier with us spending $1.5 million rather than $3-4 million."

In regards to the future of the old city hall and Signal Hill buildings, Coun. Hamm said some committee members suggested the arts centre could be moved into the old city hall, which would centralize the city's services in the downtown area. The city has been soliciting proposals for the two buildings, and councillors wanted to get an appraisal of the buildings before looking at any proposals.

Part of the scenario to be considered is the lack of wheelchair accessibility at the current city hall building, which is currently available at Signal Hill with its elevator.

The committee had asked Dick Owens to get a price for the appraisals, but as he has been sick the matter was tabled to January to get the price.

Council deferred a request from the Soo Line Historical Museum for funding of a bronze plaque until budget deliberations in the new year.

The museum wants to put up a bronze plaque on the base of the "Weyburn" sign located on Signal Hill next to the water tower. The sign was originally on the Canadian Pacific railway station located west of Government Road. The sign was donated to the museum by Barber Motors, when they demolished the train station to build their dealership building on the site.

The museum provided an initial quote for the plaque from Fletcher Funeral Home for $510 plus taxes; a final price quote will be given when a full-size proposal is received.

Mayor Schlosser said there was some question which department this request would fall under, and whether the museum wanted the city to pick up the whole cost or not. Council also felt they should get the final price quote before considering it for next year's budget.

Council approved a recommendation from the Leisure Services Commission to raise rates at the Signal Hill Arts Centre and Tom Laing Park by three per cent next year.

The increase for both facilities is due to an increase in the cost of operations and staffing. The last increase for Signal Hill was in January this year.

For Tom Laing Park, the rate hike will be three per cent as at the city's other recreational facilities, but will jump by 10 per cent in 2002 and nine per cent in 2003, partly due to higher costs than will be covered by next year's increase.

"When we did an investigation of what was happening, there were a number of discrepancies, one of them for the amount charged for use of the lights," said Coun. Hamm, adding that the city usually charges minor sports less than adults sports teams, but found this was not happening.

According to the revenues received during 2000, users paid about 19 per cent of the cost to operate the lights, and 21 per cent of the cost to operate the fields.

The city wrote off a number of utility accounts from 1999 and 2000 as uncollectible, transferred some utilities to taxes next year, and wrote off the business tax for one business which closed its doors this year.

There are 15 utility accounts from 1999 totalling $1,169 which are being written off, and 36 utility accounts from 2000 totalling $4,454.

Of the 2000 accounts, the biggest one (at $557) was for Weyburn Family Foods which closed its doors this year; the outstanding business tax for Family Foods is also being written off for this year in the amount of $2,943.

In addition, the utility bills for seven properties will be transferred to their taxes, totalling $465.

City comptroller Stan Runne said the city has tried to reach the people on the list of outstanding bills other than those who declared bankruptcy. The names were turned over to a collection agency as well, and if they are unable to collect on the outstanding bill the names will be kept on a list in case they reapply in the future to be reconnected. If they do, they will have to pay the outstanding amount first.