CRAIK—Patrons of Craik’s golf course will soon have a new clubhouse to call home.

Work on the clubhouse has progressed steadily this winter since it began in the fall.

“A lot of it is volunteers in there working at volunteer pace,” said Aaron McRae, co-chair of Craik’s golf course board. “We are basically at lock-up stage.”

The building is insulted and wrapped with vapour barrier, the doors and windows have been installed and the roof is sheathed.

McRae said they are waiting for SaskPower to hook up the power so they can get some heat inside so they can begin working on the interior.

He said they plan to install tongue-and-groove pine on the ceiling, but need the heat on to acclimatize the wood.

They plan to have the clubhouse ready to go by May 1.

The 40 x 52 foot building is similar in design to Davidson’s Golf Course clubhouse. A notable difference is that Craik’s has a 12 x 30’ foot covered deck. The building will have a residential-style kitchen similar to Davidson’s as well.

Craik’s golf course has been without an official clubhouse since a March 24, 2016 fire destroyed the Craik Eco-Centre. Since then, the golf course has set up shop temporarily in the golf course’s equipment shop while they raised money to build a new clubhouse.

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CRAIK—Taxpayers in Craik, last Thursday had the chance to learn about proposed changes to Craik’s property tax system.

Craik town council had a public meeting to tell citizens about its intention to reform the property tax system to make it fairer for all property owners.

At its Feb. 15 meeting, Craik council approved, in principle, the implementation of a base property tax of $700 per year with a mill rate of 5.5. These rates will be applied to every residential property in town so that all properties are taxed the same.

If approved the change will increase municipal taxes for people who pay the lowest property taxes—mostly on vacant lots and older houses. People who pay the highest property taxes—those with newer houses—will see a reduction in their tax bills.

Currently Craik uses a minimum tax system.

Craik Mayor David Ashdown said the minimum tax system was implemented a number of years ago to discourage speculation and to encourage owners of vacant properties to make improvements and develop the lots. Ashdown said the minimum tax does not seem high enough to have this intended effect. He said it also does nothing to encourage people to make improvements to their properties that are close to the minimum tax because larger, improved homes receive higher assessment values resulting in higher property taxes.

The tax reforms were initiated after a delegation of 10 homeowners attended council’s meeting in December raising their concerns that due to reassessment, which is done every four years by the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA), their property taxes went up considerably. The delegation consisted of people who own newer homes in the town. Ashdown said assessments went up on new properties while assessments went down on older home.

When it set the 2017 mill rate Ashdown said council tried to offset the increase in assessment values by lowering the mill rate from 13.85 to 12.85.

“It helped,” Ashdown said, but he said some property owners had a substantial increase.

“If you have 10 homeowners in a town our size coming forward with a concern you have to listen to them.”

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CRAIK—Students at Craik School marked Canada’s Agriculture Day Feb. 13 by taking a trip to the farm.

Students from Kindergarten to Grade 5 visited a cattle farm and a grain farm where they learned about where the food they eat comes from, how it is produced and the people who produce it.

Into its second consecutive year, Canada’s Agriculture Day, a day set aside for a national celebration of food and agriculture, is a relatively new concept in Canada.

The intention is to showcase the agricultural sector and create a closer connection with consumers about where their food comes from and the people who produce it, according to the organization Agriculture More Than Ever, an advocacy group for Canadian agriculture.

Vern Luther’s been having school kids out to his family’s cattle operation at Riskan Hope Farm south of Craik for the last three years.

He says he’s surprised that even in a rural community such as Craik, that there is a disconnect between people and the food they eat.

Besides showing children where the beef on their table comes from, he also hopes to spark an interest in agriculture as a possible career option for children who do not come from a farming background.

Going on fieldtrips to farms is a custom for school kids.

“Back when I was a kid, we went out to Ralph Schollar’s. He had sheep, goats and cows. And, he’d always seem to wrangle it that he’d have a cat that just had kittens,” Vern recalls of the fieldtrips he took when he was in school.

Although he wasn’t able to produce a litter of kittens, Vern did have some newborn calves to show the kids.

The most recent addition was born less than 18 hours before the kids arrived.

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