Some Random Late Summer Thoughts

Summer time seems to be a lazier time for most people, and that seems to hold true for me and the rest of council. It's been a couple of weeks since my last blog, but nothing much has been happening on the council front, and no council meetings, regular, executive, or even special meetings, between August 11th and September 2. I don't believe that past councils have taken such an extended break in the summer before.

Unfortunately, I missed the August 11th council meeting. One of Andrea's sisters and her family were due for a brief visit on their way back from a trip to the Yukon. Originally planning to arrive on the 10th, they arrived that night sometime after midnight. Ingrid had been home that weekend for a wedding, so rather than take her back to Saskatoon the morning of the 11th as originally planned, we delayed until late afternoon, so that we all could spend some time catching up with family. That meant that I didn't get back in time for council. As they say, when setting priorities, always remember who will be truly sorry at your funeral, and act accordingly.

It was a good, if too short, visit. Our visitors were able to take a couple of bike rides along the Rotary Trail, which they quite enjoyed, and get some work done on their truck before departing after lunch on the 12th. On the downside, their truck was pelted with eggs as it was parked on the avenue beside our house. Could have been worse, I suppose.

Besides some regular committee and library meetings, my time in August has been focused on house renovations, as you may have noticed if you've driven by. Largely porch repairs, replacing doors and windows in the side porch, and re-insulating and re-siding the front sunporch, and figuring out how to evict a family of pigeons that decided to nest on a handy ledge during the renovations. I'm now in the final clean up stages, and thankfully, the baby pigeon left the nest at about the time that I was ready to close off access. I was able to pick up many of the necessary materials at the Habitat for Humanity Recycle Store, which I highly recommend if you're looking for housing materials at an extremely reasonable cost.

As far as council business goes, the next major item appears to be Plan Prince Albert, the Official Community Plan. I picked up the final draft last week, and am currently reviewing it. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be available on the web-site, so the only way to get a copy is to request it from the planning department. I'd suggest that you call ahead; they had no copies available when I asked for one early last week. If we're really interested in public input on important documents such as this, we need to get better at making them easily available.

Once summer ends, I'm sure that we'll be back to our usual more rigorous schedule. In the meantime, I intend to enjoy this last week of summer, and the last long weekend for awhile.

"Nobody ever says on their death bed that they wished they spent more time at the office." - Paul Tsongas