Saskatoon City Council breezed through their regular meeting Monday afternoon. The meeting only took about an hour and a half to complete.
The ICI sector will have to begin having seperate bins for waste, recycling and compost if needed in 2021.

Saskatoon City Council voted unanimously Monday to implement the program next year with recycling to begin in the second half of 2021.

A City report says the capital costs of the program are expected to be between $790 thousand dollars and $910 thousand dollars.

Margot Orr with the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce says their members appreciate the efforts taken by city administration in regards to the matter, saying that it the communication process has been an open and transparent exercise.

Orr adds it would have been ideal to have combined some of the other options on the table, although the option council decided on will work.

The City says those in the ICI sector will also be required to label their seperate bins.

It’s expected with the program, 2,400 tonnes of recyclables and 3 thousand tonnes of organics could be diverted from the landfill per year, contributing an additional 5 per cent to the City s waste diversion rate.

In 2018, the City’s waste diversion rate was 23 per cent.

Council kept it brief when discussing a future downtown arena and entertainment district.

It only took around three minutes for council to discuss a report that stated the City is still working with external consultants and negotiating with private land owners that may have a potential space for an arena.

A report of potential sites was expected to come forward last year, although City staff are hoping to present a list to council sometime in 2020.

Dan Willems, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer with the City says in March, they’ll report back on what information they’ll be looking for from the public in regards to a downtown arena and entertainment district.

Some downtown locations have been rumoured as possible locations including the Midtown Plaza parking lot across from Hudson’s Bay on 22nd Street.

City administration will report back on what the financial implications are of hiring additional staff to faciliate pro-active property maintenance inspections.

This comes after City Council voted in favour of the move Monday afternoon.

The decision is an effort to hopefully cut into the number of calls to emergency services at rental properties.

Currently, the City’s staffing levels require complaints to be priortized based on potential life safety risk and then followed by the order of which the complaint was received.

Last year, five apartment buildings in the city averaged four or more calls to police a week and one building averaged more than one call to police a day.

At the moment, there are approximately 37 thousand rental units in the city.

The City of Saskatoon received an award from the Saskatoon Council on Aging Monday afternoon at City Hall for their work to make the city an age-friendly community.

The Age-Friendly award acknowledges communities that make their environments more inclusive for older adults. By 2025, one-quarter of Saskatoon’s population will be over the age of 65.

SCOA says the City of Saskatoon continues to demonstrate its commitment to to becoming an age-friendly city.

Saskatoon City Council also paid tribute to the late Howard Fullford Monday afternoon. Fullford was a candidate for councillor in ward 6 who ran unsuccessfully both against Councillor Cynthia Block and Mayor Charlie Clark.