The City of Flin Flon is open to taking part in a town hall meeting on the future of mining in the community – if Hudbay is interested in taking part.
When asked during the March 5 city council if the city would be willing to facilitate a town hall meeting regarding the pending Hudbay shutdown, councillor Guy Rideout said, “They’re going to consider it. They’re looking at it.”
Councillor and Flin Flon and District Chamber of Commerce president Karen MacKinnon said the chamber had reached out to the company to hold a public meeting, but had not heard back.
“Chamber has put out a request for a representative of Hudbay to come speak. Hopefully, we’ll get a response from them soon. That would be a public meeting,” she said.
“Whatever they want to talk about. It would be good and important for them to talk to the community. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but a request has been put in.”
Mayor Cal Huntley discussed how Hudbay has shared information regarding the closure with employees and members of the public, referencing the recent open public meeting between Northern Health Region (NHR) representatives, members of the We Want Birth committee and other citizens regarding the obstetrics suspension.
“They communicate on a fairly regular basis to their employees, whether it’s through the videos or whatever. That takes up most of the community anyways, but there is a segment of the community that isn’t there. As with the obstetrics situation, dialogues and sharing facts are really helpful,” said Huntley.
“The other thing I have to suggest is that the healing circle and that facility [the Eagle Rose Holistic Healing and Teaching Lodge] is a very good format to responsibly discuss contentious issues.”
Committee goals
A set of primary goals for the city’s newly reorganized committees has been released.
The three major committees for city council – the financial and administrative services committee, the engineering services committee and the social, community and recreation services committee – have been assigned specific targets to be achieved over the next four years.
“One of the things I had asked with the new committee structure is that each of the three committees had at least one significant project to work on over the next four years,” said Huntley.
Engineering services will look at maintaining public safety and pursuing and expanding high-speed Internet in and around Flin Flon, while the financial and administrative services committee will pursue improving seniors’ housing, workplace satisfaction and customer service.
The social, community and recreation services committee has been tasked with the Flin Flon Aqua Centre. Huntley said the facility will be a key piece of infrastructure for the city going forward, citing the recent closure of the Norplex Pool in Thompson as a lesson in what to avoid.
“We want to spend a little bit more time and effort and resources focusing on that facility. We’ve all seen what’s happened in Thompson and we don’t want to be in that boat. We’d like to have alternatives,” he said. “The volunteers have been doing a diligent job, but we need to buck them up and support them a bit.”
Line of credit
Council chose to approve a temporary extension to the city’s existing line of credit, providing an extra $750,000 until Sept. 1, 2019.
“It’s basically because some of the government payments we have expected didn’t come as quickly as possible,” explained Huntley.
“We have a volume of dollars waiting to come back on some federal grants to do some of the upgrading that we’ve been doing,” added Glenna Daschuk, chief administrative officer for the City of Flin Flon.
