Rob Carnie - It's time for Take 5 with Carnie and Carmichael! Featuring, of course, Moose Jaw city manager Maurice Carmichael.
Today we are focusing on the City of Moose Jaw and the City of Moose Jaw Strategic Plan for 2026 through 2029.
City manager Carmichael, the plan is built around five core pillars starting with Resident Centric Community, can you expand on that?
Maryse Carmichael - Absolutely. So maybe before I dive into the resident centric community I just want to share the process and a little bit about what this strategic plan is all about.
So Council was elected in November 2024. The first thing that we did was budget, and then right away after that was creating the Strategic Plan.
This new Council that's with us for four years: what did they want to achieve here in the city? We went through a whole process with Council, and with administration as well. But the important thing is that Council did not only think about the next four years, they thought way into the future; into the next decade or two about what we want for the City of Moose Jaw? What's important on the infrastructure side for our residents? For services?
So, from there, vision and mission came out and yes the five pillars. The first one is the entire reason we do the work that we do, our residents in the community.
The very first pillar of this strategic plan is a Resident Centric Community — and really what we're talking about is safety, affordability, the community spirit, the services that we give to our residents and our that our community really to ensure that our residents are first, they're engaged, they feel valued, and they're really proud to be Moose Javians.
This is what we aspire to over the next four years. We're not quite there yet. There's some of those pillars that were perhaps a little bit more advanced than others, but this is what we're working towards.
Rob - Part of that plan: Economic Growth and Partnership, very important.
Maryse - Super important, I mean that is another reason we always want to grow our community. We always want to continue. We always want to thrive. So, partnerships, economic development, new businesses coming to Moose Jaw, and higher paying jobs, of course.
Really focusing on our key industries, we're talking tourism, we're talking transportation, and agriculture. So, we’re looking at those key areas, looking at what we can do in terms of land development, strategic locations, how we can go and attract investment into our city. It’s really important to be focusing on this growth and what makes our city thrive.
Rob - Other pillars include Sustainable Infrastructure and Environmental Stewardship, Financial Responsibility and Transparent Governance, and a Vibrant, Safe and Welcoming City.
Maryse - Those three pillars go and help in supporting our community when we're talking about financial responsibility and infrastructure as well.
We do have some infrastructure challenges in the city. Most cities in Saskatchewan and in Canada are seeing a lot of their infrastructure coming to the end of their useful life.
We're talking Crescent View Lift Station, we're talking the 4th Avenue Thunderbird Bridge,. So, along those major projects, of course, we need funds to be able to finance these new or upgraded initiatives.
So financial responsibility is important. We know it affects all our residents. We know that every dollar or almost every dollar that we get comes from residents. So we want to be judicious in how we spend it and that's why it's one of the strategic priorities.
Rob - While the strategic plan is a document, it's also, we need to point out, a commitment from the people at City Hall.
Maryse - It is a commitment, and this is a living document. We're going to continue referring to it over the next four years. It is also the document that city administration, the strategic leadership team, and our employees will take and make their work plan for the year based on it.
You will see as well, when we present reports to Council, there'll be a reference to exactly which pillar the report or the project is based on and if it's not based on that — because there are some initiatives that we bring up to Council that may not be fully linked to the Strategic Plan — we will also say that.
Rob - Very good.