Monthly Archives: April 2013

featured

Local fights for harness racing fairness

On April 15, Davidson standardbred horse trainer Gary Schmiedge walked into Arm River-Watrous MLA Greg Brkich’s constituency office and presented a petition signed by around 30 area people to Brkich’s assistant.

The petition requests the Saskatchewan government reinstate two home market areas in the province, which would enable West Meadows Raceway, the new standardbred horse harness racing track in Regina, to set up teletheatres and telephone account betting to generate revenue. The province had two home market areas prior to 2002 when Queensbury Downs in Regina was still in operation.

Schmiedge said the standardbred horse racing industry in this province would come to an end if the two home market areas were not reinstated. He said the racetrack in Regina couldn’t operate this year without the teletheatre licence change, which affects the pocketbooks of more than just the horse trainers.

“The veterinarians, we’ve been in touch with them and some of them are pretty concerned because they lose a lot of business if the horses leave,” said Schmiedge. “The gas (stations) lose money because it takes a lot of money to go to Yorkton (Cornerstone Raceway) or Regina. Restaurants, it’s a big spin-off for them. Some people come in and stay in Regina overnight, so there are motels.

“There is just no end of people that it involves (including) a lot of students in the summer months or after-school. They go to these tracks and they get jobs grooming and cleaning barns. It gives them some employment. There is no end to what it affects.”

Donna Harpauer, Minister of Crown Investments for the Government of Saskatchewan, said the original decision to go to one home market area was decided through an agreement between Queensbury Downs and Prairieland Park, which runs thoroughbred races only, in 2002. She said the two tracks realized there was not enough telecast betting in the province to keep both tracks viable.

“Queensbury Downs decided to exit that market,” said Harpauer, noting telecast wagering has gone down even further since then. “It wasn’t a big enough market for them to continue and Prairieland then purchased the assets at that time. Since that time there has been one home market area for the province of Saskatchewan and Marquis Downs (at Prairieland Park) has been the holder for that.”

Harpauer said the province-wide teletheatre licence would continue to go to Marquis Downs for the next three years, up from the original one-year agreement, in order to maintain stability for the racetrack and their contributions to the province. She said the thoroughbred raceway has a 500- to 600-horse inventory with approximately 250 Saskatchewan horse owners and 50 trainers who live in the province along with the numerous staff they employ year-round, while the standardbred horses come mainly from out-of-province.

To read more please see the April 29 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Davidson considers opening Communiplex this summer

The Town of Davidson is considering the idea of opening the Communiplex to skateboarders, ball hockey players and rollerbladers among other fitness enthusiasts this summer as a way to keep residents active.

Trevor Ouellette, recreation director for Davidson, said opening the Communiplex to summer activities is a way to make better use of the centre. He said having the facility open 10 months a year instead of the usual six gives residents more options in terms of recreation while also getting more service out of the building.

“It’s not going to be any type of revenue generation (for the town), but still if we can get the users in there just to use it then it provides more to the public,” said Ouellette, noting this change is not in place yet and still has to be discussed and passed by town council.

The Communiplex is available for rent during the summer months at a minimum charge, but Ouellette said this change would open the facility to any fitness club members who would like to use the rink surfaces without an additional charge. He said the idea is to have the rink surfaces open to anyone with a fitness club membership, so they may be able to choose between using the gym equipment at the fitness centre or taking their exercise routine to the rink surfaces.

“If you’re a skateboarder and you have no interest in the fitness side, but you still want to go two to three times a week (to the Communiplex), it’ll still be $25 for the month,” he said.

Skateboarders, for example, could bring their own equipment such as halfpipes and rails onto the Communiplex rink surface this summer to take advantage of the level and smooth concrete if they have a fitness club membership if this change passes. The only demand from the town would be the users have to remove the equipment and clean up after themselves when they’re done.

“If you want to make some rails or whatever, we’re willing,” said Ouellette. “As long as you respect the facility, you’re not damaging it and you clean up after yourself.”

The Town of Davidson recreation board will come to a final decision on whether to open the Communiplex to summer users at their board meeting in the first week of May.

Davidson

Davidson School senior play gives fresh meaning to “Yolo”

Coming to a realization that you must seize the day and not sweat the small stuff is the basis of the new school play, “Yolo,” showcased by the Davidson School senior drama club this past week.

“Yolo” is a collective play written by the club who also stage and star in the production. They performed the play before a packed house in the Davidson School gym last Tuesday night for dinner theatre before bringing it on the road to Drama Festival in Unity April 19 and 20.

Jasmine Smith, stage manager with the senior drama club, said the group started the process of writing the play last October, beginning with character development before moving on to the plot and setting.

“It was a lot harder than we ever imagined,” Jasmine said, noting they received a lot of help from their director Arlene Low throughout the process. “It started with The Big Bang Theory as basically our skeleton and then we added to each of those characters to make the casting of the people who were playing them have their personality show.

“We had Matthias (McCreary), so we took his character and we thought ‘how could we make Matthias turn into this character and give him mannerisms that Matthias would have on stage.'”

Matthias, who plays Lance in “Yolo,” said modelling the characters after themselves made it a “little easier to act” their parts on stage. He said the most difficult part about writing their own play was trying to “fit in” all the ideas they wanted to express.

Brad Brazeau, who plays the character Stanley, said the club was strictly writing the play for the first two months of production. He said they started to put it together on stage in January, which also gave them a chance to fill in any blanks in the script that they came across during rehearsals.

“It was something that not many of us have tried before,” Brad said, “so it was definitely a fun experience.”

To read more please see the April 29 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Kenaston

Power outage prompts four-day drinking water advisory in Kenaston

A precautionary drinking water advisory has been lifted for the Village of Kenaston four days after a power outage compromised the safety of the drinking water supply.

Carmen Fowler, administrator for Kenaston, said village residents were advised April 20 to boil all drinking water and any water used for other activities such as brushing teeth or dishwashing plus not drink from any public fountains after the widespread power outage occurred between the hours of 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. that night.

“Once the power is out for a period of time then the (water) treatment plant depressurizes, which can cause contamination of the water lines once the power comes back on,” said Fowler. “The person taking care of the treatment plant, depending on what the situation is, monitors what happens and if they feel it needs to be called in (to the regional environmental protection officer) they have the numbers for them. He talks to them, gives them the situation and they decide whether to put (an advisory) on or not.”

Fowler said only residents of the village were affected by the drinking water advisory, so any outlying farms did not have to boil their water. She said Mayor ML Whittles, a councillor, herself and members of the volunteer fire department went door-to-door after the advisory was issued to inform residents of the situation.

Tyler Hopson, spokesperson for SaskPower, said the outage affected 890 customers in the areas of Hanley, Kenaston and Hawarden. He said the culprit was supporting equipment failure and workers for SaskPower got the equipment fixed and the power back on as quickly as possible.

Fowler said this is the first time a power outage has prompted a precautionary drinking water advisory in Kenaston and to get the water back up to snuff she sent three samples to the provincial lab at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon last Monday and Wednesday. She said the village received a clear result after they sent the second samples in that they could lift the advisory.

“We’re hoping this never happens again,” she said, “but we can’t control that I guess.”

featured

Davidson donates $1,500 to golf course

Davidson town council has decided to donate $1,500 to the Davidson Golf Course this spring in an effort to help them cover their yearly operating expenses.

Davidson Mayor Clayton Schneider said the decision to help the course is unanimous among council members because they “all feel around the table” that the course is important to the town as a great service for resident’s recreation needs. Council reached this decision last Tuesday after a presentation by two members of the golf course executive at town council’s monthly meeting.

“They are trying to make up the difference for their extra costs, so they’re asking for help and we’d like to help them any way we can,” said Schneider. “This is important to us.”

Cliff Cross, president of the Davidson Golf Course board of executives, said he and golf course board member Ryan Shaw approached the town for funding due to their annual tax bill of $9,600. He said this bill is close to $5,000 more than what they used to pay in taxes thus putting them $5,000 in the hole with operating costs for the course.

This $9,600 bill is split with $3,000 in municipal taxes being paid to the Rural Municipality of Willner and $6,600 paid in annual school tax.

The course was originally facing $10,000 in annual municipal taxes to the RM on top of the school tax due to its classification as a commercial course, but an agreement between the RM and the course last month lowered these costs to the current bill with the course having to find ways themselves to make up the difference.

“We were asked by the (RM of Willner) to see if we could get funds from other existing organizations that use the golf course like other RMs, the town of Davidson and so on,” said Cross. “We got $1,000 from (the RM of McCraney) and now the town has given us $1,500.”

Cross said the course currently holds two fund-raisers during the year, but would try to hold a third one this year to try and make up the difference in expenses. He said as of now that has not been put in place yet.

Schneider said this $1,500 donation to the course is for this year only, but ongoing support “would be definitely looked at” if necessary. He said the town is also prepared to help the golf executives on their fund-raiser plan to try and raise more support for the course.

“It was mentioned (during council meeting) for fund-raising that they want to do some fund-raising,” he said. “The town would be willing to work with them on that.”

Davidson

Playschool kids newest prairie artists

Prairie dogs and burrowing owls have become the muse of young artists at the Davidson Playschool.

Through a recently awarded $4,180 Creative Partnerships Exploration grant, the playschool has brought in Derek Pho, a Saskatoon visual artist, to help the two-, three- and four-year-old students create their own prairie dogs and burrowing owls through papier maché artworks.

Pho made his first visit to the school last Thursday for a session with the kids. During the morning art class with the pre-three students, Pho directed them into filling brown paper bags with other paper to make it into a full rectangular object. The students were then helped to wrap the piece in masking tape.

Pho said he and playschool volunteer Terra Fazakas along with teachers Angela Fahlman and Trudi Smith would then work with the kids to create a prairie dog by covering it with papier maché on his next visit to the pre-three class April 30.

“Being younger students, we hope to help them with the tasks to accomplish the project,” said Pho.

The toddler group will enjoy two visits from Pho for their artwork, while the three-year-olds will have three visits from the artist in making the prairie dogs and the four-year-olds will have five visits in making burrowing owls.

“This will be group art and not just individual,” he said, noting the completed pieces will be displayed as a whole and permanent structure to the public by June. “We’ll just see how it forms together. All the pieces will be involved in some way.”

The Creative Partnership Exploration grant is given out to explore how visual arts can enhance environmental awareness within the classroom, which makes the choice of the prairie dog and the burrowing owl perfect for the project, said Pho.

“The prairie dog is a local animal to Saskatchewan and the burrowing owl is an endangered animal,” he said. “Also we’ll be using as many recycled resources as possible with the project because we’re interested in a sustainable environment.”

In addition to the art classes, the playschool will welcome the burrowing owl centre to the classroom May 9 who will give the students a lesson in the life of the species as well as bring a few live birds into the classroom for the students to see.