Weyburn residents can look forward to positive growth in 2001, following up on the successes of the past year, says Mayor Don Schlosser.

In a year-end interview, the veteran of city council pointed out the many positive signs around the city in 2000 despite continued depressed grain prices for area farmers.

Two of the reasons for these signs are strong cattle prices for those producers in mixed farming, and continued strong oil prices which helps producers who have wells on their land, as well as local residents employed in the industry in the Weyburn area.

"The startup of the CO2 injection program by PanCanadian has been a good thing for Weyburn and area, because we know the industry will be around at least another 25 years in the Weyburn oilpatch," said the mayor, adding Alcatel Canada Wire's expansion has also been positive for the city.

He notes two businesses, Tenold Transport and Universal Reel, have both relocated here which wouldn't have happened except for Alcatel's expansion, and have provided extra jobs in addition to the new jobs at Alcatel itself.

Other construction projects around the city also are signs of growth, including the long-awaited library expansion, and new buildings for the PFRA and Canada Post, both of which are privately owned and leased to their tenants. Housing starts have nearly kept up to the previous year as well, with 15 new dwelling units created in 2000 compared to 16 last year.

Looking ahead to 2001, Mayor Schlosser said the city is hopeful for good news on a couple of fronts, one being development of the seven-acre parcel sold on Highway 39 West, and the other the sale of the old distillery property.

The mayor said the city is still not aware what the highway property was bought for, although there has been a lot of rumours about the company.

"It will be a major store of some sort, but I don't know what it is. The one thing I'm hoping for, and I'm sure with any luck it'll happen, we'll have the big portion of the distillery plant sold for something," said Mayor Schlosser, noting talks have been held with a couple different groups of people recently, including one group this week.

He is also looking forward to the relocation of City Hall into the Federal Building, he added, with renovations slated to begin sometime after the present tenants are moved out as of March 31, 2001.

"I think it's something that has been needed for a number of years. With everything on one floor, we're going to be a lot better off in dealing with our customers and showing a better image of the city once we get relocated. We do have to look the design; we don't want to spend money crazily on it," said Mayor Schlosser.

A new program that council is working the details out for is a revamped version of Weyburn Builds, to help people who might want to demolish older homes or move homes into Weyburn. The mayor said the fine details haven't been finalized, but this program will be similar to Weyburn Builds with additional components to the program, such as helping with demolition costs, landfill tipping fees, or promoting the criteria to move an existing home into the city.

City council has begun work on the new budget, but they won't be able to finalize it until the provincial budget comes down later in the spring.

"We've told administration we want to come in with a zero-per cent increase, but I don't know if that will be possible with not only wage increases but increased costs for SaskEnergy and SaskPower," said the mayor, adding he's not looking forward to seeing the new energy bills for such facilities as the arenas.

As a longtime director with SUMA, the provincial urban municipalities association, the mayor said they will also continue their lobbying efforts to stop or slow down government downloading onto municipal taxpayers.

"We hope the provincial government will start to give back to the municipalities some of the money they've been taking away for the last 10 years. We're going to keep working away on that," said Mayor Schlosser.

With two new council members on board for Weyburn, Mayor Schlosser said he looks forward to the new ideas and enthusiasm they will bring to the council table as they deal with these and other issues in the coming year.