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.
A northern Saskatchewan town trying to run a smoother ship is looking to Creighton for some guidance. The Town of La Ronge is undergoing an organizational review to increase efficiencies, strengthen organizational structures, firm up governance relationships and forge a team environment. To do that, La Ronge plans to establish a set of benchmarks based on data from six other Saskatchewan communities. In a letter to town council last week, Dave Zarazun, town administrator for La Ronge, asked Creighton to serve as one of those communities. This would require Creighton to supply La Ronge with data on municipal budgets, employee numbers and operational changes, among other information. Only data that has already been made public would be requested. 'We will use the data to build a benchmark report, and the participating communities will receive a copy of this report that will include representation of their community,' wrote Zarazun. 'We will be pilot testing the collection of the data here in La Ronge, and our objective is to ensure that the time required to compile the data is kept at a reasonable and acceptable level.' Town council had no comment on the request, referring it to the committee level for further discussion. With a population centre of 5,905 people, La Ronge is a 319-kilometre drive from Creighton. Zarazun's letter did not mention the five other communities from which La Ronge hopes to gather information.
