MOOSE JAW - After a petition to discuss the location of the Souls Harbour Rescue Mission shelter failed to get the required minimum number of signatures earlier this year, city council was convinced of the need for a public discussion to address homeless shelters in general, along with addiction services and safety concerns in downtown Moose Jaw.
The upcoming meeting will be held at the Events Centre on Monday, July 29, and isn’t a council meeting so no decisions will come as a result. Each speaker — who must be a registered Moose Jaw voter — is allotted five minutes without any follow-up discussion.
According to Maryse Carmichael, the city’s manager, the meeting will be held as a typical public forum and is intended to encourage public participation, share information, and is for residents to express what’s most important to them.
Coun. Dawn Luhning, on the other hand, questioned the meeting itself and whether it’ll accomplish anything at all.
“What is our goal for this meeting? What is our outcome going to be,” Luhning asked, alluding to the fact that no decision will follow and she expects the meeting to be unproductive.
“(Q)uite frankly I think it’s going to be an evening where it’s a little combative,” she added. “I’m not much interested in sitting through a meeting where everybody is going to be complaining saying, ‘We are not doing this’ and ‘We’re not doing that’ and blah, blah, blah.”
To address this, the city has considered hiring Mr. Craig Gates, an experienced third-party facilitator with MNP (Meyers Norris Penny).
Earlier on July 8, the City Clerk’s Office ruled a 1,928 signature petition submitted by the Good Neighbours Group to force a public meeting over the Souls Harbour Rescue Mission failed to meet the threshold of five percent of electors — approximately 1,683 votes — as set out by the Cities Act.
This meeting is expected to cost around $8,000 and will be livestreamed on Facebook for those unable to attend.
Coun. Heather Eby, herself a city representative for the downtown Moose Jaw business group, hopes the meeting will be solution based rather than simply “anecdotal.”
“If it’s solution based, then I’m all for it,” Eby said. “If it goes sideways, I’m not interested.”
Eby explained her position by stating that everyone has heard the stories and knows the downtown situation is bad, but it’s solutions that petitioners want to hear.
“If anybody thinks we’re going to come up with a solution after this (meeting)… I think you’re sadly mistaken,” Coun. Luhning said.
“There are so many complicated issues out there… (and) there isn’t a cookie-cutter solution,” Luhning continued. “There is not one simple solution to anything that’s happening in our city or in any cities across the country.”
Luhning then addressed Carmichael about the cost of the meeting, stating that $8,000 “is a lot” to pay. In response, Carmichael said the funding will come from the city’s contingency budget which has $40,000 set aside for this type of event.
Coun. Crystal Froese suggested the meeting could be productive if each community organization is given five minutes to explain their roles, noting that most residents “don’t know much about the work that is done.”
Then, planners can identify gaps and go back to the drawing board. “That, to me, is worth attending,” she said.
“If we’re not going to make some changes, then we’re just going to be back here next year bringing up the same issue and discussing the same problems,” Froese added.
The meeting, Coun. Kim Robinson noted, is meant to address concerns about the overall safety of Moose Jaw’s downtown.
“Our residents are feeling that they’re not being heard,” Robinson said. He added that he’s “glad to get this thing off the ground” and opined that Carmichael “has done a great job… (planning) a very well-rounded public meeting.”
Robinson illustrated his position with a Margaret Meade quote. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
If you wish to speak at the event and are an eligible voter, you’re asked to register with the City Clerk’s Office ahead of the July 29 meeting. To contact the office, call 306-694-4426, email CClerk@MooseJaw.ca, or visit the City Clerk’s Office at City Hall between the hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.
The meeting will be held on Monday, July 29 at the Moose Jaw Events Centre’s second floor meeting room starting at 6 p.m. The Events Centre is located at 110 First Avenue Northwest.
