The City of Weyburn's facilities committee will not proceed with the second phase of the Colosseum renovations, but will instead go to tender with a modified version of Phase 4, with an estimated price tag of $550,000, in order to prepare for the Royal Bank Cup in 2005.

Coun. Ray Hamm, chair of the facilities committee, explained that after the first phase was approved of a four-phase plan, they stated they would not proceed with the second phase unless there were significant dollars available for it through the government.

As this does not appear to be coming at this time, the committee feels that Phase 2 should be put on hold for the time being. At the same time, however, Weyburn has committed to hosting the national Royal Bank Cup in 2005, and some additional renovations will be needed for that major event to be held in the Colosseum.

The committee agreed with this need, but also insisted that any renovations that occur should help make the Colosseum into a multi-use facility, including some uses not currently available there. The uses could include groups such as the Senior Beavers ball club, the Devils hockey team and other Colosseum user groups. What the committee didn't want, added Coun. Hamm, were temporary fixes that would be gone as soon as the RBC event is over.

What was agreed on is a modified version of Phase 4, which includes two new dressing rooms, a new officials room and an expansion of the press box area. The estimated cost for this work would be $550,000, but actual tenders need to be sought to find out the true cost to proceed at this time.

"We believe this is a job local contractors can do, but we need something specific to hand to these people," said Hamm, in asking for council's support to send the proposal to the drawings and tender stage.

In terms of funding, Hamm noted that between $125,000 and $225,000 is already available to the city to use for this work.

Coun. Gary Frederickson said he was in favour of the work being done, "but I'm not excited about taking on further debt. I do it out of respect for the work of the RBC committee, but reluctantly from the cost standpoint."

"I do have some concerns, but I think the committee has done a lot of work to ensure this project does fit into the phased plans, so I will support this," added Coun. Rob Stephanson.

Council approved a proposal from the Weyburn Agricultural Society to do some major projects on the exhibition grounds this year.

The projects the society wants to make reality include a new 1,000-seat permanent steel-roofed grandstand behind the existing set of portable bleachers; construction of a permanent rodeo arena with permanent stock chutes; and placement of a permanent demolition derby ring.

In addition, the society wants to relocate the concession booth and storage booth from its current location to line up with the south edge of the new permanent grandstand.

The permanent rodeo arena is proposed for the area immediately to the east of Tom Laing Park, with the demolition derby ring to be beside it.

The new grandstand will have a six-foot-high stairway, and then 15 rows of seating, with the roof to stand about 24 feet above the ground, according to drawings of the facility presented to council. The society plans to begin work on the new facilities this coming spring.

Council gave approval to two separate, unrelated meat processing facilities, one of them located immediately outside city boundaries in the RM of Weyburn.

The first project is a members-only meat-cutting facility, proposed by Orville Klatt and Clarence Maurer to be located at 225 First Ave. S.W., south of Great Plains Ford.

This facility would not process live animals, but members of the facility will bring in their own carcasses and the facility will butcher it.

As chief building inspector Doug Mulhall explained, it would be much like a butcher shop, except with no retail component. As such, there was no specific zoning for this type of facility, other than as a refrigerated warehousing facility.

As this fits the zoning for the location, namely Light Industrial, no notice of neighbouring properties was given or required.

Conditions of approval for this property are that no animal offal products are permitted in the municipal waste stream; undesirable neighbourhood impacts such as odour or noise are not permitted; and health department approval is required.

The other project, located in the RM just west of the Brady's trucking, on the north side of the road across from the city's landfill, is the proposed Prime Plus Processors abattoir and meat processing facility. Unlike the other facility, this one will deal with live animals which will be delivered into the building and processed, with no pasturing on the site.

The facility is proposed by Al Janke and John Wilgenbusch, with the intention of the plant being a fully government-certified facility. The main approving authority for this proposal is the RM council, but as it is located close to Weyburn, city council's approval was also sought. The RM may need to change the zoning to accommodate this proposal, and there is an application to subdivide the land for commercial development.

City property owners will be gradually paying more over the next five years for water and sewer services, as the city seeks to build up its reserves for some major upgrade work needed in the next few years.

The city originally began a 10-year program in 1996, with the fees for water and sewage increased by small amounts each year, but the program was suspended in 2000, when council decided not to pass on any further increases.

In the last year or so, however, the provincial and federal governments have been passing tougher regulations to make this country's drinking water safer, and in order to meet these laws, the city will have to upgrade the quality of both its water and sewage effluent.

A new reservoir and booster pump will need to be built at an estimated cost of $2 million; the incidence of THMs has to be reduced by 2008, which means the city will have to install new technology at a cost of $4 million; and finally, a new sewage treatment plant will need to be built to upgrade the quality of sewage effluent discharged into the Souris River; this will cost an estimated $10 million.

The water utility has a reserve of $2.69 million, while the sewer utility has a reserve of $4.8 million. These reserves do not accrue any interest, however, and only increase through excess revenues.

Council was told that based on 2004 water and sewer rates, Weyburn ranks as the fourth lowest amongst the cities of Saskatchewan, with Moose Jaw at the far low end and Humboldt at the high end. Weyburn's average monthly charge, based on 25 cubic metres, is $41.84, compared to $33.50 in Moose Jaw and $77.79 in Humboldt.

The utilities propose to raise that average monthly charge to $43.79 this year; to $45.53 by 2005; $47.39 in 2006; and up to $50.93 by 2008, not including the environmental or connection fees.

In other council business:

· Mayor Don Schlosser, newly-elected president of SUMA, said he attended his first meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) held in Vancouver, and found it very educational. "A lot of the problems we're having here in Weyburn and in Saskatchewan are happening in a lot of places," he said, noting in the final gathering, there were 72 representatives around a huge table from every province and territory in Canada.

· With the new property maintenance and nuisance abatement bylaw now in effect, the city appointed the facilities committee to serve as the appeal review committee, to handle any appeals launched by a property owner of any clean-up work order issued by the city.