The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Question: Council can't tell us how much we will have to pay for metered water. Do the benefits of meters outweigh the concerns? How? Mayor Therien: Having water meters installed prior to us getting a water treatment plant would have made good sense. Without meters, we do not have an accurate household consumption as every household is based on the same average rate and not on actual use. Council has said all along that an accurate consumption level would help in determining what size of a treatment plant the city would require. The dangers of not knowing are that we will probably be building too large a treatment plant than what we require. There are other benefits of having meters as well. Having said all that, the horse has come before the cart, if you will. The funding for the water treatment plant was recently announced through the federal/provincial stimulus package and, as you know, Flin Flon received one of the largest grants, in terms of dollars, than anyone else in Manitoba for a single project. With that in mind, it would appear that the requirement of water meters may be a moot point at this time. * * * Question: What are some of the issues in Flin Flon right now that concern you but which are totally out of the control of yourself and council? Mayor Therien: Council is always concerned about the number of doctors we have in town. Unfortunately, so is ever other council across this country, let alone Manitoba and Flin Flon. I feel for the RHAs in their quest to get a full complement of qualified medical personnel but, at the same time, we cannot let this issue go by unnoticed. We know that any new doctor that comes to Flin Flon will do so only as a contract doctor. That is, they will only see a limited number of patients outside of their hospital duties. This is a sharp contrast to a fee-for-service doctor who sees as many patients as they can outside of their hospital requirements, as their compensation is based on a per-visit charge. The more they see, the more they get. However, the fee-for-service doctors are few and far between. Doctors are people too and, as such, have issues outside of their work as we all have. This, I think, we need to respect. It creates its own problems, but we need to respect their need for a balanced lifestyle as we all are looking for that. Another issue is, of course, the imminent closing of the smelter and how this will all play out once that day comes. We keep hoping that at the end of the day, jobs lost will be at a minimum and that those affected will be able to weather the storm until something else comes along. The announcement of Lalor comes at a good time, but it is still a number of years away. This issue, along with the already-declining student enrollment, plays heavily on the future decisions of our school board, and I have great empathy for them. We, as citizens, expect our students to receive the best possible education that they can get. This does come at a significant price and as easy as it has been to lay the blame for our taxes being so high on the school board, I am not sure I would, really, like the alternative, but that is my personal opinion only. * * * Send your questions for Mayor Therien to The Reminder by phone at 687-3454, fax at 687-4473, e-mail at [email protected] or standard delivery at Ask the Mayor, C/O The Reminder, 14 North Avenue, Flin Flon, R8A 0T2. No names are required. Ask the Mayor runs Mondays.
