featured

RCMP policing costs increase by 8 per cent

The cost of rural policing is going up by 8 per cent this year and next bringing the price of keeping the Town of Davidson protected to just under $36,000 in 2012 and over $38,000 in 2013.

The cost of policing the towns of Hanley and Craik, which both have an RCMP detachment, is going up to under $30,000 this year and close to $32,000 in 2013 for Hanley and under $27,000 for 2012 and around $29,000 the next year for Craik.

“We’re happy with the service,” said Gary Edom, Town of Davidson administrator. “We paid much more than that years ago. We paid over $100,000 years ago.”

Edom said the town used to have to contract out a man and a half from the RCMP for 60 hours a week, which is why the costs were so high. He said that when the formula for tabling up policing costs was changed for the 1999 budget year, the town then only had to pay about a third of the original bill.

The price of having the RCMP look after Davidson is now based on a per capita rate. It has increased to $35.05 per person between April 1 and Dec. 31 in 2012 compared to the 2011 rate of $32.45, which ended March 31 of this year. For 2013, the rate will rise to $37.85.

With a population of 1,025 in Davidson, the annual cost to the town comes to $35,259.96 for the final nine months of 2012 from $33,261.25 a year ago. In 2013 that price tag will rise to $38,796.25 with the same population size.

“The rates haven’t changed since 2006,” said Katherine Geldart, director of financial services and risk management for policing at the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice. She said the size of the increase is a policy decision and was put forward by the provincial government in this past budget.

The Town of Hanley will see its bill go up to $29,023.26 in 2012 with a population size of 522 from $27,378.90 a year ago. In 2013, that figure will jump to $31,935.96. They pay $56.65 per capita this year and $61.18 in 2013, up from the 2011 rate of $52.45. Their rates are higher than Davidson because they have an RCMP detachment in the town.

“We have to wonder what we’re paying for,” said Darice Carlson, administrator for the Town of Hanley, referring to the small detachment in the town. “It’s not really a detachment as there is no manned office. Currently, the majority of calls made to this detachment get redirected to the Saskatoon office for action. If a decision was made to close this detachment, it would certainly be cheaper for the community, but it is certainly not what the citizens would wish for.

“We have and are continuing to work with the officers that live in town to be more proactive with policing in the community, but even though members live here, they haven’t been able to show their presence due to duties in the other areas of the detachment at times.”

To read more please see the Sept. 3 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

featured, Sports

McNabb readies for an uncertain year with no NHL hockey

Brayden McNabb is looking to start the year as a regular on the Buffalo Sabres blueline and is working hard this summer to build up some muscle and improve his foot speed, despite the threat of a NHL owner’s lockout cancelling the upcoming season.

“I’m going to have to earn a spot out of camp, so I’m doing my best to train right now over the summertime and get myself ready for that,” said McNabb, the Davidson native who split the 2011-12 year between the big club and their affiliate in Rochester. “The camp will be (open Sept. 15) and that’s what I’m training for right now. When the time comes, I’m hoping to be ready to go and get a chance to crack the top six.”

The 21-year-old defenceman played 25 games for Buffalo in his first year in the pros last season scoring a goal and assisting on seven others. He suited up for another 45 with the Rochester Americans racking up 30 points including five goals for the AHL club. He was picked up by the Sabres in the third round of the 2009 draft while playing with the Kooteney Ice of the WHL.

McNabb said he is on the ice pretty steady now as he builds on the repetitions to get more game ready, progressing from only lacing up the skates one or two times a week in early July. He trains with Kelly Riou of Next Level Training in Saskatchewan during the off-season, but also spent three weeks this summer in Buffalo working with Doug McKenney, the team’s strength and conditioning coach, at the Sabres’ home rink, the First Niagara Center.

“It’s a bunch of weights and a lot of feet stuff,” he said about his exercise routine. “That is the big thing I need. Earlier in the year I do more weights and more in the gym. Now that it’s August I’m skating almost five days a week, so it’s a combination of in the gym and skating right now. Usually at the start of summer I try to get more weight put on and get some more muscle and get some muscle back. Later in August and into September I try and get my cardio more into shape.”

To read more please see the Sept. 3 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Craik

Dr. Ryan Meili to speak at Craik Legion

An inner-city Saskatoon family doctor is heading to Craik this weekend to discuss his new book which focuses on the social determinants of health and the changes needed to Canada’s public policy with a goal of creating a healthier society.

Dr. Ryan Meili will also address the challenges of recruiting physicians to practise in rural Saskatchewan.

Meili, whose book is entitled A Healthy Society: how a focus on health can revive Canadian democracy, said he will be talking about his experiences working as a doctor in northern Saskatchewan, Mozambique, and Saskatoon as well as the stories of patients included in the book to illustrate the things that “really have an impact” on a person’s health and well-being. The book launch will be held Sept. 9 beginning at 7 p.m. at the Craik Legion Hall.

He said the challenges of income, education, employment, housing, the wider environment and social services or the lack thereof on an individual or community need to be discussed to bring about democratic reform that focuses more on ensuring a better life for all Canadians.

“As countries get wealthy, they also get less equal,” said Meili. “We’re not sharing the wealth in a way that’s allowing everyone to participate. There’s actually quite a lot of research that shows that countries that are more unequal have worse health outcomes.

“The interesting part is you would assume that in a more unequal country you would have more poor people and poor people tend to be sicker ergo worse health outcomes,” he said. “But it’s the wealthy people’s health that suffers as well. No matter what you’re level is, in a more unequal society, your health is worse than someone at the same level that has less of a gap between the rich and the poor.”

Meili said he is “hesitant” to say exactly what he will be discussing about the doctor shortage plaguing rural Saskatchewan and Craik in particular, but he will be speaking about the challenges that exist in recruiting doctors to rural areas in this province and the ideas he thinks could help solve this problem.

“We can often leave rural or the smaller centres out of these discussions, but there is really smart people and really interesting people in all of these communities,” he said about the need for a healthier society. “I’ve been hearing lots about the way the community is getting mobilized around health care with the loss of their doctor. It’s a really great time to open up the books and talk about just what is it that Craik wants for their own health and how the issues in this book will fit into that discussion.”

Davidson, Sports

Davidson School to have junior football

Young football players hoping to suit up in Raiders’ blue and white no longer have to wait for Grade 10 to get involved in the action, as Davidson School is starting up a junior football team this September.

Trevor Ouellette, town recreation director and head coach of the junior team, said the new club would welcome boys and girls from grades 7 to 9 to tryout for the Raiders’ junior football team. He said tryouts would start the second week of school with a focus on introducing the young players to tackle football.

“We’re planning for 13 to 15 kids coming out,” Ouellette said. “If we get 15, we’re laughing. It’s male and female. If the girls feel comfortable getting hit, they are more than welcome to come out.”

Kids who make the team will be charged a fee to help pay for the team’s expenses, with the rest of the money needed to start up the club coming from a community grant from Sask. Lotteries. The school decided to put together a junior team in order to make better use of the new field behind the school and to create a feeder system into the senior team.

Ouellette said it is unfair to suit up a senior team with little to no experience in organized football and put them into action against other clubs that have kids that have been playing the game for the past four years. He added another benefit of junior football is to get the kids more active and challenged both mentally and physically.

“You learn a lot about yourself, about what you can do and what you can’t do,” he said. “You are put into a lot of intense one-on-one battles, especially in six-man football.  I played 12-man football for seven years in the city and the first three or four years you never get to touch the ball, you just run up and down the field. With six-man, you can’t hide. You’re involved. It’s a lot of fun.”

To read more please see the Sept. 3 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

 

Davidson, featured

Davidson mayor decides not to seek re-election

Mary Jane Morrison will not be running for a third term as mayor of Davidson in the fall election saying she “just felt the time was right” for her to step down, but she will continue to try and make the community a better place.

“Anything that I haven’t accomplished or still would like to see happen, I still will contribute to as a citizen,” Morrison said. “That is maybe a little bit of encouragement for other people in our community too. Everything doesn’t fall on those six council members and mayor to make things happen in our community.”

Morrison said she first entered town politics eight years ago because she believed it would be “exciting and rewarding” to be a part of the growth and progress of Davidson.  She first was elected to town council in 2004 in a by-election. Two years later she ran for mayor winning by acclamation, replacing Jim Cross.

“I knew it was a big job,” she said. “I knew it would be bigger than I thought. One thing I’ve sort of seemed to find in the last six years is when something doesn’t go well or an organization or an institution or something is struggling or falling, they look to town council for solutions and sometimes that is overwhelming.”

Despite these struggles, Morrison said the town council in her time as mayor has accomplished many things including becoming more “current” on planning and the way council has formed a relationship with its staff.

“We also have a better understanding of community development,” she said. “When I first got on council eight years ago, we kind of thought there was economic development, but I think we know now that there is a lot more to it. It is the community as a whole and I think we are growing in that respect.”

Community development, physician recruitment and retention and seeing the town grow and progress have been the major interests of Morrison in her time as mayor, but the advice she would like to pass on to the next mayor of Davidson is just to keep positive.

“Keep things in perspective,” she said. “There is so many positive things that happen, so don’t let the negatives deter you. They do get more attention and more coverage, but don’t let that bother you.”

Davidson

Home damaged in late night blaze

A fire tore through an unoccupied house on Hamilton Street last week causing extensive damage to the home, which was in the process of being renovated.

Don Willner, deputy chief of the Davidson Fire Department, said the Aug. 18 fire started in the living room at the front of the house at 210 Hamilton Street and worked its way up an interior wall into the attic. He said the department arrived on scene at 3:55 a.m. to find the house partially in flames, but got it “knocked down” quick enough that the fire didn’t even “melt the siding” on the neighbouring homes.

“We cleared scene at probably 7 or 7:30 in the morning,” said Willner. “There was flame on the exterior of the house and on the front end of the house, but we had that knocked down right away. We had to pull down quite a few ceilings and cut a lot of access holes through the roof itself to get the attic vented out and to get it cooled down.

“The actual flame we had knocked down probably within 20 minutes, but that’s a lot of work to get into the attic area to get the remaining hot spots cooled down.”

Engine 41, 42 and the Davidson Fire water tanker along with nine firefighters were involved in combating the burn. Davidson EMS and members of the Craik RCMP detachment were also present.

To read more please see the August 27 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The Davidson Leader, Davidson, Saskatchewan