Brandon Minute: Issue 130

Brandon Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Brandon politics

📅 This Week In Brandon: 📅

• Council meets today at 7:00 pm, and one of the items on the agenda is a proposal to hire an outside consultant to evaluate the Brandon Police Service recruit class training program. The recommendation before Council is to accept a bid from MNP for the consulting work at a total price of $175,000, net of GST. It also asks Council to commit $78,000 of that toward the 2027 financial plan, so part of the spending would fall into a budget that has not been set yet. 
  
  
• Also on tonight's agenda is first reading of an amendment to the City's Animal Control By-law, which would rewrite the clauses covering how many pets a household may keep. The amendment would also update pet licensing rules, along with what the agenda describes as general housekeeping changes. First reading is the earliest stage in the process, so the limits themselves would not be settled tonight. The publicly posted agenda does not include the text of the amendment or a report explaining it, so the proposed pet limits are not disclosed ahead of the vote. Council is also taking second and third readings on a separate by-law that would open a portion of public road south of Victoria Avenue East and east of 17th Street East.
  
  
• Council is also being asked to authorize Administration to negotiate and execute a new Destination Marketing and Event Tourism Services Agreement with Brandon First. Under the recommendation, tourism marketing responsibilities currently delivered through Brandon Riverbank Inc. would be transferred to Brandon First as part of that agreement. Brandon Riverbank Inc's current agreement with the City would then be amended to reflect the change. The agenda does not post a dollar figure for the new agreement or say how long it would run. Administration would negotiate the terms after Council authorizes the change rather than before, so the contract's value is not on the public record at the point of the vote.
  
  
• Away from tonight's meeting, the City is spending $210,000 to improve drainage at the Wheat City Golf Course, after flooding earlier this year damaged most of the front-nine area. Council approved the work at its September 8th meeting, and the money will be drawn from the City's parks reserve. The cost will be split across holes 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, with most of the digging and shaping expected to be finished this fall and minor repairs carrying into next year. City recreation manager Heather Reimer said the upgrades will improve the course's ability to temporarily store water and to move it off the site. Reimer also said the City has disaster financial assistance requests in to recover money already spent on flood prevention at the course, but that this work counts as an improvement and is not eligible. Scott Ramsay, the course's Director of Operations, said the aim is for a cleanup that used to take weeks to take days or hours instead.
  
  
• Open Streets Brandon has wrapped up the third and final day of its pilot project, and organizers are now weighing whether the road closures should become permanent. Under the pilot, Lorne Avenue was closed to vehicle traffic between Rideau Park and Stanley Park for five hours on one Sunday in each of July, August, and September, with the last event held on September 13th. Emmy Sanderson, Executive Director of the Brandon Downtown BIZ, said each event drew a larger turnout than the one before and that the feedback from participants was strongly positive. Sanderson said the biggest problem was communication, with some drivers unaware that certain routes would be closed despite the committee's efforts through social and traditional media. She said residents have told her they would like a permanent pedestrian corridor downtown, but that the committee will not move ahead on anecdotal evidence alone. Open Streets Brandon gathered data during the events with help from researchers at Brandon University, and that analysis will decide what comes next. 

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