Mayor Gets New Committee To Help Keep City Clean

After cleaning house and reducing the number of citizen advisory committees an initiative by the Mayor wants to add a new committee to help clean up Moose Jaw and build pride. A committee not everyone on Council agrees is necessary to get the job done.

“I want to live in a cleaner city and I want to take pride in the community in which we live in,” Mayor Fraser Tolmie said as the reasoning behind creating the new committee.

Despite there being other groups in the community who are active in efforts to keep Moose Jaw clean the Mayor said the main effort needs to be centered from City Hall.

“This is an effort that should be lead by the City and the committee should work in partnership with other community stakeholders to help other organizations to keep our city clean,” he said. “I want to live in a clean city and I want to be proud of our efforts to make our city beautiful. The effort has to live beyond this Council’s term.

However Councillor Crystal Froese opposed the formation of the committee saying it was simply duplicating much of the efforts of what is already going on in the community.

“This topic has been tackled in a lot of different ways in the community,” Councillor Froese said, adding when she returned to live in Moose Jaw in 2011 that herself and Councillor Heather Eby had worked together to create Beautify Moose Jaw to tackle the City’s cleanliness problems.

“We started a group Beautify Moose Jaw which tried to bring a more cohesive approach to picking up litter a couple of times a year in our city.”

The cohesive approach had led to significant spin-off activity by attracting the Youth Advisory Committee to come on board and then use collected garbage to create art in a way to bring more attention to the issue and the need to keep litter in check, she said, adding a proposed committee may not add much to community groups assisting in the clean up efforts.

“There are a lot of things already underway so I am not really sure on the structure of the committee. I certainly don’t want to see an advisory committee and using staff and collecting minutes…I love the idea of cohesiveness but are we just duplicating what’s (out there) and using City resources (to do it),” she said.

Councillor Froese suggested an awareness campaign to encourage people to pick up trash but that “what we have is already working in the community….the groundwork has already been done.”

She said a lot of things could be accomplished through a communication’s strategy and allow the already existing groups take the lead role with the City being auxiliary to their efforts.

“The pride in our community is certainly there. I have seen it as I have been side by side out cleaning with a lot of these groups since I moved back here in 2011,” Councillor Froese said.

Councillor Dawn Luhning said she believed that a new committee would largely just be a duplication of what is already happening in the community.

“I think we already have a committee working this mandate,” Councillor Luhning said.

Despite the misgivings by some members of Council city manager Jim Puffalt said the committee would not be to duplicate the efforts but rather to help those involved in keeping the community clean.

“Not that we should lead this but giving a hand to the groups that are already out there,” Puffalt said. “Certainly as a City we have to take leadership and we have to ensure our properties are clean and kept the best that we can,” he said.

Councillor Heather Eby questioned the need to have a formal committee instead of using the time spent at meetings to just physically pick up litter.

“I would much rather be out picking garbage,” she said.

Mayor Tolmie said the City needed to take the leading role in keeping the city clean.

“I think we should be leading…we need that regularity that is communicated from the pulpit to the community.”

A committee could coordinate between the engineering and parks and recreation departments to help promote “events that can be generated by the City because of the committee.”

He said the committee’s purpose would not be to take away from the group’s now actively involved in community clean up and pride but “this is to help and coordinate with them.”

It is a committee which may be necessary to some on Council but to at least one councillor it also is redundant as there already is on-going efforts within the community to help keep things tidy.

Despite the apparent concerns raised by three Council members about the efficacy and role of a new clean up and community pride committee in the end Council voted 5 - 2 to establish the new committee - with Councillors Froese and Luhining opposed.

The new committee’s structure and ultimate role was left up to Administration to define and report back to Council on.