Members of council and administration met with representatives from Social Services, Saskatchewan Housing Corporation, Weyburn Group Homes Society and Terra Developments on Monday “to discuss a path going forward to meet the needs of the Weyburn Group Homes Society, their clients and the community of Weyburn.”
The meeting was in response to the council meeting of the week before, when comments made by city councillors on March 11 about an application to build a personal care home in The Creeks, along with the decision to deny the application, ignited a firestorm of reaction by the public on social media, the Internet, in the Legislature and with a protest held at the entrance to The Creeks on Coteau Avenue.
In the statement made by council on Tuesday morning, the application which was first rejected will be brought back to council at the earliest meeting that would be allowed by the city’s bylaws.
“All parties came to Monday’s meeting looking for a positive solution and left feeling that the direction going forward will get this home built in The Creeks,” said council’s statement.
Coun. Brad Wheeler and then city council as a whole issued apologies for the comments made, and Mayor Marcel Roy held a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday to explain what happened and why.
Mayor Roy told reporters that council was simply following the process for an application for a discretionary use permit, and with “pushback” from residents in The Creeks, they felt they had to vote that way.
The mayor and council were also urged by Social Services minister Paul Merriman to reconsider the decision, and he told reporters, “It’s a very slippery slope when people from the community are picking and choosing who lives on their street and who doesn’t.”
Many comments made in reaction to the city’s comments and decision urged city council to reconsider the decision. In their statement of apology issued on Thursday, council said, “As a council, we are continuing to exhaust all avenues to find a solution to get the care home built and to begin the healing process with our community.”
In an email from Creeks resident Brad Spencer, he noted that for some of the residents, they simply want more information, as they had questions with no answers prior to the council meeting on March 11.
“Some of us were not vehemently opposed to the group home, and our last email to the city was simply to ask for a bit more time to gather as much information before we could make an informed decision based on facts and expert opinion, not on misinformation, rumours and hearsay — something that in this day and age of the internet and social media, is not very often done,” said Spencer, pointing out that in research he and his wife Miranda did on such concerns as property values, they found there is no evidence pointing to a decline in property values.
Spencer also noted that the unsigned letter to the city from “residents of The Creeks” did not reflect his or his wife’s views, and added, “I didn’t even mention the most undeserving and unfortunate in all of this, the residents of the group home. The more I have sat and thought about this and talked it over with one of my kids, they have as much right to live there as I or anyone else does. I’m not sure what more they can provide than 24-hour supervision, etc. I guess if anything good comes of this, it is the discussion around the subject of those with mental and physical disabilities, as with so many subjects it seems that needs illumination in this day and age.”
For more on this story, see the story in the Weyburn Review on March 20
