City council moved towards repealing the Sunday Morning Sports Bylaw with a 5-1 vote in favour at Monday's council meeting on the first two readings, with the final vote to take place on Monday, Jan. 24.

The vote to repeal the sports bylaw was almost a complete reversal of the 4-3 vote on the same issue last June. The third and final reading needed to repeal the bylaw was delayed as Coun. Ray Hamm was not able to be present for Monday's meeting.

A number of representatives from both Weyburn Minor Hockey and the Weyburn Ministerial Association were on hand for the meeting as well, with only two members of the Ministerial making any comments to council.

In addition, City Hall received a total of 20 phone calls on the issue, with 18 in favour of repealing and two wanting to uphold the bylaw, along with 15 letters received in favour of repealing compared to nine letters in support of the current bylaw. The letters favouring repeal included such groups as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Red Wings Hockey Club, Weyburn Soccer, Weyburn Minor Ball, Weyburn Minor Lacrosse and the Weyburn Skating Club.

The lone dissenting voice on council was Coun. Dick Michel, who commented that as the bylaw was brought in via plebiscite, this issue should also be decided by plebiscite.

Rev. Hazel Arbon, president of the Weyburn Ministerial Association, said council should uphold their bylaw as it affords families to spend one day of the week together to rest and relax.

"Repealing this bylaw will further compromise the ability of families to take a Sabbath day of rest," she said, adding that while Minor Hockey is struggling to find enough ice time for their teams, they should not be encroaching on what little family time is available in the week.

Cam Weber of the Weyburn Gospel Assembly was the other speaker to council, and reiterated the importance of families having time to spend together and to relax without having to worry about schedules and running off on a Sunday morning. He said at the very least the issue should go to a plebiscite for the city's residents to decide if they support this initiative or not.

One of those who changed his vote this time was Coun. Gary Frederickson, who commented that as a sports coach for 30 years, he wouldn't want to have a Sunday game as he would also like a day off, but he also recognized there is freedom of choice involved in this issue.

He noted while this bylaw was brought in by a plebiscite, provincial law only requires a municipality to leave it in for three years, and this bylaw has been in place for 16 years.

Coun. Bill Rudachyk was on council when the original bylaw was brought in, and said there was only one incident he knew of where a coach penalized a player for choosing church over playing on a Sunday morning.

"I believe the current members of minor hockey will work to make sure this does not occur again. The responsibility of what a child should do on a Sunday morning is entirely in the hands of the parents," he said.

Coun. Bill McKenzie said he hoped to hear from young people who are involved in minor sports and what their thoughts are about playing on Sunday morning.

Coun. Rob Stephanson also agreed with repealing the bylaw, saying, "I do feel it's not right for council to make moral choices for people. I would love to see one day a week where we could sleep in and spend time with our families; I would vote for that if we could enforce it, but we are a seven-day-a-week society."

He also felt safety was an issue, as many teams have to travel out of Weyburn for games and practices as there is not enough ice time available with the city's two ice surfaces.

Mayor Don Schlosser agreed, adding, "If we don't allow it to happen in Weyburn, it will happen outside of Weyburn."

He also noted that some people who supported the original bylaw in 1988 do not support it today, and that the bylaw only applies to city-owned facilities; people can still play sports in non-city facilities on Sunday mornings.

Council approved the preliminary version of the 2005 budget, with no increase made to the city portion of property taxes.

As the city is implementing the base tax this year, starting at $390 this year, and all properties will be reassessed for fair market value by SAMA (Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency), the city wanted their portion of taxes to be held at zero.

The zero increase was only made possible by making extensive budget cuts, causing Coun. Stephanson to issue a warning to government and to city residents, "This can't go on. We need to be strong with some of the resolutions at SUMA. Municipal governments have to work hard to convince the upper levels of governments that this can't go on. We're biting the bullet on a lot of things and that may return to bite us back."

The cuts were necessary, said city manager Bob Smith, as inflation alone, with no increases in spending, would raise the budget by 2.7 per cent. After going through departmental expenditures, with many departments decreasing spending, there was an increase in spending of 1.4 per cent or $127,322.

The result is capital projects in particular were cut back by around $1.1 million, including cutting back proposed paving of Fifth Avenue North, saving $339,329, and cutting a planned realignment of Queen Street, saving another $390,000. Recapping of parking lots was cut, saving $40,000, as was paving of a taxi-way at the airport worth $18,000, paving on the exhibition grounds worth $16,400 and paving of the Leisure Centre parking lot worth $10,000.

Other reductions included $21,400 from the police budget, $20,000 from flood control, a traffic sign at Souris Ave. and Third Street worth $12,000, a further $25,000 from the snow removal budget, part of a total cut of $85,600 from the engineering budget, plus over $10,000 cut from the parks budget and $11,600 from the Leisure Services budget.

For some of the cuts, such as to flood control and snow removal, Smith noted if any increase in spending was needed in those areas it would come out of reserves.

With the changes being made this year to taxation and assessment, Smith could not say that a municipal tax bill would remain the same as last year, as it depends on the effects of the base tax, plus how a property fares under reassessment. The city is planning to hold open houses in March along with SAMA to explain how the reassessments were done.

The reassessment is being carried out for all properties in Saskatchewan, and the properties will be looked at on a mass appraisal system to determine if any one type of property has gone up or down in value, based on actual sales values for each class of building, whether commercial or residential.

On a home assessed at $80,000, the annual municipal tax this year would be $916 or $76.33 per month. The school portion of the tax is unknown until the school divisions set their mill rates for the year, usually after the provincial budget has been set. School taxes may not increase this year, as the province announced a property tax relief of an eight per cent decrease across the board on school taxes, although how this will translate locally is yet to be known.

In other council business:

· The building permits as of year-end totalled 95, worth $8.84 million, compared to a year ago when there were 92 permits worth $29.04 million, with most of the difference due to the construction of Tatagwa View, worth $17.66 million, and the new Canadian Tire store.

· The Souris Valley Drive from King Street west into the Souris Valley grounds will be renamed Saskatchewan Drive in honour of the province's centennial. The original proposal was for Fifth Avenue North, but council felt with existing addresses that would be affected, a road with few or no addresses would be better. The other road into Souris Valley grounds, going by Tatagwa View, has already been named and will not be included as Saskatchewan Drive.

· The year-end attendance numbers for the Leisure Centre were 61,208, up from 60,643 the year before. Also, business licences totalled 291, up from 280 last year, bringing in $44,880 compared to $36,401 for 2003.

· The new rates for Leisure Services were approved, with a five per cent overall increase set for Signal Hill Arts Centre, the arenas and for Tom Laing Park.