The Davidson Communiplex is applying for two $2,500 community rink affordability grants for their skating and curling ice surfaces, but that’s still a couple goals short of a win in trying to keep their utility costs down.

Trevor Ouellette, town recreation director, said the money would help because “$2,500 is $2,500,” but when you factor in the actual power costs for running the Communiplex during the busy winter months it doesn’t come out to much.

“SaskPower, for 2011, we spent $32,000 on just power alone on the skating side and on the rink side it’s another $10,000,” said Oullette. “Just power for the Communiplex is $42,000. So $2,500 sure goes to help it, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a pebble in a lake type of effect.”

Ouellette said they should qualify for two ice surface grants for the skating rink and the curling rink, but he’s “not banking on it until we see it.” He said they should be eligible because both ice plants are running on separate meters.

The Government of Saskatchewan is doling out $1.9 million to ice surfaces across the province fulfilling a promise by the Sask Party in the 2011 provincial election. The grants will be administered and delivered by the Saskatchewan Parks and Recreation Association.

Ouellette said since they started a program of sending in reports on utility usage and capital projects to the government in 2009, SaskPower has “actually been a leader” in helping the Communiplex reduce power costs, even though the program is run by the provincial government.

“The provincial government is committing $1.9 million, which does seem like a lot of money in the big budget, but when you have 700 eligible participants in that program to divide it up evenly, that’s where you get the $2,500 from,” he said. “If (utility bills) go down, every little bit helps I guess.”

Doctors Joanna Keall and Chantel Kaytor will look you straight in the eye and tell you the hard truth. Don’t take it against them; they’re just doing their job.

Keall and Kaytor are the new optometrists in Davidson. The two doctors will be running a satellite clinic at the Davidson Family Practice every second Thursday, with the next one scheduled for Sept. 27, where they will be conducting eye exams as well as taking measurements on and dispensing glasses.

“We’re very excited,” said Keall. “We’ve worked for a good year to be set up here and we’re excited to be open finally. People will not have to drive (to the city) for exams and it’s an opportunity to make it easier on them.”

She said their first day on Sept. 13 was a bit slow, but that was “perfect” as it gave them a bit of time to get organized. The two doctors work fulltime out of InSight Vision Care in Regina and also practise in satellite clinics in Indian Head and Balcarres.

Donna Bessey, community development coordinator for Davidson, said the goal of the town is provide its residents with as many health services as possible. She said they will be looking into bringing the duo over more often once they have built up a big enough clientele, but for now it’s just great having them here at all.

“It will enable people to access services that otherwise they’d have to drive to Saskatoon or Regina or over to Outlook for,” said Bessey. “Especially for seniors it can be quite difficult for them or even for people who don’t drive, so it’s providing a needed service.”

Mary Jane Morrison, Mayor of Davidson, said bringing in the optometrists is part of a broader health plan that she hopes will see more caregivers from all areas of medicine come to town to practise including dentists, occupational therapists and podiatrists. She said if the town and the health region could work together and try to bring these services to Davidson and find space for them everyone from young people to seniors will benefit.

“It’s a little bit of a slow process,” said Morrison. “It’s not like we have the funding to build a building, but we’re certainly aware that if we could have a professional building it wouldn’t have to house all of these people at the same time. It could be rotating.

“Whether we work with the health region to try and do something more at the Health Centre or try to get a professional building on Main Street, we have our eyes and ears open for those opportunities. We’ll do what we can to make that happen.”

Keall said for now they are happy working out of the Davidson Family Practice and anyone can book an appointment with them by calling 567-1000 or just “mosey in” on their scheduled days to browse the selection of glasses on display.

A feathered fiend is to blame for the widespread power outage that enveloped Davidson and area last Saturday afternoon.

“It was actually a bird that made contact with some of our equipment near Davidson and sometimes that can cause an outage on its own,” said Tyler Hobson, media spokesman for SaskPower. “In fact, it looks like it caused a fuse at a substation near Davidson to actually blow when that happened. The fuse blowing caused some extra damage to another piece of equipment at the substation, so it took them just over two hours to get things fixed and then power restored.”

The winged marauder that rammed the power equipment kamikaze like took out power Sept. 1 between the hours of 3 p.m. to just past 5 p.m. in towns from Craik to Kenaston.

Hobson said if anything like this occurs again, be it a bird living out its Hitchcock fantasies or merely a scary storm, residents can now get updates via twitter. There has been no word on how to access twitter when the power is out.

“We’ve just launched a twitter feed about a week and a half ago to report power outages as they happen,” said Hobson, adding residents can access it through @SaskPower. “We’re just working towards getting that operating seven days a week right now, so it will be very soon and that’s a good spot residents can go to and check for information on updates. They can always call our outage centre line as well, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”