The City of Flin Flon tried to make Bellevue Avenue safer for children and pedestrians when it installed speed bumps three years ago. Now a resident is calling for those speed bumps to return.
Ken Bateman told council Tuesday that some motorists are travelling as fast as 80 km an hour when heading down the southern block of Bellevue from the Duck Pond. Two existing speed bumps were apparently removed last winter for the purpose of snow-clearing and had not been reinstalled as of Wednesday afternoon. Bateman hoped that would happen soon.
Mayor Cal Huntley told Bateman his comments would be referred to the committee level for further review, but added it would be more helpful if Bateman wrote a letter documenting his concerns.
Donations
Also at the Tuesday meeting, council approved $5,000 worth of donations for three community events, a sports team and a safety initiative.
Receiving $1,000 each were the Flin Flon Aboriginal Friendship Centre’s National Aboriginal Day, 2016 Trout Festival, Canada Day fireworks, a teenage girls’ volleyball team and a speed-monitoring sign.
National Aboriginal Day celebrations were held June 21, with the Trout Festival and fireworks taking place last week. Huntley said an unfortunate oversight led to the city not having a representative to deliver opening remarks at National Aboriginal Day.
The girls’ volleyball team includes eight players from the Flin Flon area. Council’s donation will go toward their registration costs for the Manitoba Summer Games in Steinbach next month.
Coun. Karen MacKinnon said the girls would be promoting Flin Flon while in Steinbach. Coun. Colleen McKee, whose daughter is on the team, excused herself from the vote.
The final donation will help Citizens on Patrol Program (COPP) bring a speed-monitoring sign to the community. The sign is to be set up at various locations to monitor vehicle speeds and inform motorists of how fast they are going.
Letters
Huntley clarified council’s policy around which pieces of correspondence reach the public meeting and which do not.
The Reminder is occasionally asked by residents why a letter they wrote to council was not discussed at the public portion of council meetings held in the council chambers.
“We get correspondence that will not be read in public,” said Huntley when asked about the matter. “There’s different reasons for that. It may be a personal letter to one of us or it may have something to do with personnel, and we have the ability to sort of vet what we’re going to read and what we’re not going to read based upon, you know, privacy laws and different things like that.”
Reflections
Councillors took turns praising last week’s Trout Festival, with Huntley noting he and Creighton mayor Bruce Fidler shared a vehicle in the parade.
“I had a really good time and I think everybody along the parade route had a really good time giving both of us a hard time, and it was a lot of fun,” said Huntley.
He said he received a lot of positive feedback regarding the festival and how the community is looking cleaner than before.
Huntley said next year’s festival will be “bigger and better” to coincide with a homecoming celebration. He said there has been talk of reunions being held around festival time next year as well.
Even fees
Council levelled the paying field for mobile vending units that do business in Flin Flon.
Council approved final reading of a motion to set fees for owners of such units at $500 for a year and $75 for a single day.
Chief administrative officer Mark Kolt previously said “transient traders” who set up in Flin Flon had been paying more than food vendors. The motion makes the fees the same.
