Last week, the City of Brandon played host to the Association of Manitoba Municipalities Spring Convention, which saw more than 600 representatives from all of Manitoba's municipalities get together to talk city politics. Dauphin's Mayor David Bosiak and council were in attendance to speak on the things that are important to Dauphin.
Mayor Bosiak said speaking with similar communities to Dauphin as part of the Cities Caucus is invaluable, especially to hear some ways other communities are dealing with some common issues.
"Hearing what's going on in their communities, sharing what's going on in ours, sharing best practices for the things that are common concerns, and letting them know what we're doing really well and what we're struggling with, so that for me is what's the greatest value at AMM...what was consistent with what we were concerned about is, what are communities doing with their homelessness, with their security, safety, those kinds of concerns. All of the municipalities that we meet with were dealing with similar kind of issues. We've got some plans in place in what we want to do, so hearing what other communities are doing is beneficial to us," said Bosiak.
Bosiak mentioned a few of the communities he spoke to on the issue of public safety and security have their own Community Safety Officer programs. He said talking to representatives from those communities gave valuable insight into whether a similar program would work here in Dauphin.
"Talking with the folks from Thompson and Portage who both have Community Safety Officer programs, it was interesting to see what works with those programs and the challenges that they have with them...and then also talking to other municipalities at the Cities Caucus about the new policing contract that's coming up with the RCMP, and how that's impacting the municipalities that have contract policing, there's a couple cities in Manitoba that have their own police services, they have similar kinds of issues," said Bosiak.
Bosiak said one of the city's major concerns from recent months is the Safe Warm Space no longer operating during the day on weekdays, and it's a problem the city is actively looking at. The Safe Warm Space is now only open from 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM on weekdays, though they still operate 24 hours a day on weekends.
"We're finding that we've got a small population in the community that has no fixed address, so when the Safe Warm Space now is not operational during the day, many of these folks don't have any place to be, and they're wandering in the community, which isn't against the law or anything, but has caused some concerns for some businesses and public spaces. So we're trying to figure out, is there something that we can do, that's our jurisdiction, to deal with that," said Bosiak.
Another key topic Dauphin got to discuss at the AMM Spring Convention was the province's recent inclusion of the Northgate Trails expansion project in their provincial budget. Bosiak said it's a great sign to other cities and municipalities.
"We've been working on this, I know I say we, I mean the Northgate folks for 7 years. Hats off to Alex Man and Clayton Swanton for not giving up the fight, and working really hard on being ready...it's kind of monumental, in the sense that this is the first time something this big has happened in a national park with external funding, and so we're so excited to get going on it, and making sure that it's a complete success, because all of the partners want this to succeed," said Bosiak.
Northgate Trails is gearing up to host a presentation on the Crawford Creek trail development plan on May 14th at Obsolete Brewing Co.
