Newsroom

Mayor Steven Olsen’s Year in Review

The Municipality of Markstay-Warren saw a lot happen over the past 12 months. Some of the major projects included resurfacing Sunset Road, developing a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, becoming an officially bilingual municipality, and implementing a Livestream system for Council meetings. We also acquired new pieces of equipment, such as two new graders and a new pumper-tanker truck. We recruited three new councillors, as well as new administration personnel such as a new CAO/Clerk, a new Manager of Public Works, and a new Finance Team.

Having these elements in place will help to set us up for success in the year to come, make our community safer, our council more transparent, and enable growth.

While the past year saw many positive highlights, we acknowledge some challenges as well. Municipal finances are not as robust as we had hoped, many government reports were outstanding (resulting in some grants being rescinded completely,) and infrastructure needs greatly exceeded the budgets due to lack of regular maintenance in past years. Records Management is non-existent, and most of the policies have not been updated in many years and therefore do not reflect today’s realities.

These are challenges that this council is ready and willing to take on, and do the work necessary to get our community headed in the right direction once again. As a council, we are pulling together, and we are committed to transparency in how we do it.

These challenges aside, we’re looking forward to 2024 with optimism and are quite excited about the year ahead. Some of the planned projects include the addition of new accessible playground equipment to the parks in Hagar and Warren, improvements to Warren drinking water, as well as the much-anticipated revitalization of Markstay streets. In addition, we will be commencing our building of affordable housing stock for families and providing options for older adults looking to downsize.

Finally, 2024 is the year we will prioritize economic development and opening of new businesses, creating both employment and new opportunities.

To quote the great Frank Sinatra: The best is yet to come!

Happy 2024 to all the residents of Markstay-Warren!

Mayor Steve

Reminders

February's edition of the Newsletter's deadline to receive articles and ads is Wednesday, January 24th.

If you would like a hard copy of the newsletter, you can visit the following;

• Warren Library
• Markstay Library
• Rustic Café
• Bertrand's Confectionary
• Hagar General Store
• Kukagami General Store
• Warren Univi Health Centre
• St-Charles' Food Market
• Senior's Golden Age Citizen's Club.

Regular Council Meeting

The regular Council Meeting will be on Monday, January 16th, 2024, 7:00 pm, at the Municipal Council Chambers in Markstay and on livestream. You are always welcome to come out and join us. These meetings are open to the public.

To view the livestream of the Council Meeting, click here, January 15th’s meeting. The livestream link will be posted in the description of the meeting. Check back closer to the date for the link.