This is Talk of the Town with Brooks Mayor John Petrie. The official opening of the JBS
Canada Park was this week.
John: We’re fortunate that we have some outstanding recreational facilities in community and
a big thanks has to go to the corporate sector. For years, the oil and gas industry has been generous to
helping finance facilities. And lately, JBS Foods has come to the plate with a big donation that made the
JBS Canada Park a reality. It is located where McKay Park was, and includes some nice basketball courts,
a picnic area, a mini soccer field and playground equipment.
For the JBS Canada Park, this is very heavily used. If you were to come here any night of the week,
regardless of the weather, you will find kids playing soccer or basketball, people using the walking trails
and enjoying the playground equipment. The JBS Canada Park is now a back yard for a large number of
people that live in the apartment buildings in the neighbourhood and we are delighted to have been
able to work with JBS Foods to upgrade the space.
For the JBS Canada Park, this is very heavily used. If you were to come here any night of the week,
regardless of the weather, you will find kids playing soccer or basketball, people using the walking trails
and enjoying the playground equipment. The JBS Canada Park is now a back yard for a large number of
people that live in the apartment buildings in the neighbourhood and we are delighted to have been
able to work with JBS Foods to upgrade the space.
Total person crimes were up 16.9 percent. Property crime was down 12 percent and criminal
code offenses were down slightly.
Jourdan: Council continues to work on the housing issue and Brooks applied for a grant from
the Housing Accelerator Fund, but were turned down.
John: When you apply for these grants, they federal government wants communities to come
up with plans to help. We’ve done that by giving a break on municipal property taxes, speeding up the
process and discounting land. Since we had passed these a while back, CMHC said because of that, we
are not eligible. That doesn’t make any sense to me. What we are going to do is send a letter to the
Federal Minister of Housing and question him on how they are supporting communities in addressing
these challenges.
Jourdan: And Council also looked at our rules for secondary suites.
John: We had a good discussion on that and our rules for secondary suites are pretty flexible.
We want them to be safe, legal and if there is one, they are following the laws. A couple of issues that
comes up is that the secondary suites have a separate entrance and parking. The lack of parking is never
an easy problem to solve.
Jourdan: Council also reviewed the municipal franchise fees.
John: You notice these are your power and gas bills and council has the ability to change the
rate on these. In both cases, the electrical franchise fee and gas franchise we, we kept the same as the
year before. The electrical stays at 14 percent, while the gas remains at 19.5 percent. No one likes the
extra charges, but the revenue generated helps fund the city. Without those, property taxes would have
to increase substantially.
Jourdan: There were some appointments to boards.
John: We always appreciate the residents that come forward to sit on local boards as they
provide good insight for council. Catherine Siakaluk was appointed to the Library Board, Maureen Lynn
to the Brooks Environmental Advisory Committee and Jess Bactol to Safe Communities.
Jourdan: And next week is yard waste clean up.
John: This is the last week for pick up for the Yard Waste bins, but if you still have a lot of
leaves and yard waste around, put them in a compostable bag, put the bag on the street where your bin
would normally be, and the city will pick it up next week on the day the bin is normally picked up.
Jourdan: This has been Talk of the Town, with Brooks Mayor John Petrie.