With the majority of Winkler's summer construction projects winding down, there is one big project the city is just getting started on.
"We've had a really good construction season," said Winkler Mayor Henry Siemens. "We're basically winding up the Main Street and Stanley intersection...Park Street will be paved next week. Lions Park, tennis courts, we also expect those to be complete next week, obviously, weather permitting."
As those wind-down, the city is beginning a major rehabilitation of the George Street Reservoir. "That's the big, round concrete building that you see on George Street when you drive by and you don't necessarily know what it is," added Siemens.
"That is our chief ability to store water so that we're able to provide clean, safe drinking water when people need it," said Siemens.
The large concrete building is able to store 4 to 5 days' worth of average water use for everyone in Winkler.
"If our system was to go down and we have that building full, we're able to provide water for a good amount of time. So if we compare that to the tank that you see at the Water Treatment Plant, that one would provide about half a day's worth of water to the City of Winkler. So you can see how critically important it is for us to make sure that this one functions properly."
Once drained, the George Street reservoir will be offline for several months.
Siemens is encouraging residents to take the opportunity to participate in a survey being conducted by the Winkler Police Board.
"The Winkler Police Board is going to the community and asking what they feel about the service. How the service is performing? Opportunities for improvement? The survey itself has a couple of questions about areas you believe to be a concern in Winkler, things that should be looked at," said Siemens.
Siemens says they're hoping to get as many people as possible to participate in the survey to get as broad a range of opinions.
Paper copies of the Police Board survey are available at Winkler City Hall. The survey can also be accessed through the Winkler Police Service's social media channels, and at buildwinkler.ca
"I would really like to encourage people to get involved," added Siemens. "It's not a hard survey, it's a fairly short survey. But it has a couple of really powerful questions that are going to help the Police Board guide the Service into the future."
Meantime, Siemens says they continue to see the Winkler community being very diligent at paying their tax bills on time. He notes they're currently at 96.2 % collected, which is consistent with other years.
Siemens says the council's ability to fund the operations of the city depends on people paying those bills on time.
Winkler City Council has kicked off its annual budget planning process, with 2024 budget deliberations recently getting started. Council will meet with the senior staff at the Civic Centre on October 10th.
Siemens says they have put a full day aside to dive into what types of things they need to look at for next year. Staff will then take those conversations and use them to narrow the budget down for the final presentation in early January.