One of the first items of last night's City Council meeting was a conversation between the City and Estevan Minor Baseball (EMB) about the current loans between them. EMB was looking for some relief, cancelling the current money owed.
In their letter to cancel, EMB asked that they would cancel the current $33,000 as they had not received financial assistance in 2025, with that money being used for projects to rehabilitate and improve some diamonds.
President Mel Murray was at the meeting and explained that they had a number of tournaments planned for the summer which would attract a good amount of people and would be a lot of work for EMB.
Councillor Kirsten Walliser pitched in, stating that she's against the decision to cancel those loans due to the motions made during the last council.
"This request ... was provided to our parks manager in preparation for the budget this year and when it was decided that it would not fit operationally, when the request came in front of Council and was delivered at that time and Council decided that we did not have much more budget this year to replace the shale on the 2 diamonds. Now to negate the previous loans would still be an expense to the taxpayer."
A motion was made to reject cancelling the loans, which was supported by every member apart from Councillor Dave Elliot and Mayor Tony Sernick.