One of the Village of Canal Flats’ top priorities identified for this year is an Economic Development Strategy. Our plan is to come up with two community profiles: one emphasizing on business and the other on residential.

We have allowed some funds in our budget and are in the process of applying for additional funding through the Columbia Basin Trust to hire a contractor for this task. This exercise will help us identify what kind of community we are and what kind of businesses we are looking to attract. This information will also be helpful as we continue to work with the other municipalities and Electoral Areas to develop a valley-wide economic development plan.

Once we have identified who we are and where we want to go, Council will be looking at creating a community brand. This will provide distinctive positioning and a creative way of communicating about the Village and its qualities.

To gather more information on how to go about this, Council asked Swansea Communications to give a presentation at the last council meeting.

We were very encouraged to hear the process should only take 13 weeks from start to implementation.

In other news, after a bit of a frost break, work on the water system upgrade project should commence by the end of the month. Despite this break, we are assured the project is still on time and, most importantly, on budget. We were also able to spend the remainder of our grant money prior to the deadline of March 31st, 2014.

Council recently authorized the Family Resource Centre to use the meeting room in the Columbia Discovery Centre on an ad hoc basis. This means that residents in Canal Flats will be able to access the centre’s services — which include individual and family counselling — without having to travel to Invermere. We are very grateful to the Family Resource Centre for making their services more accessible to us.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and/or concerns.

Ute Juras is the mayor for the Village of Canal Flats and can be contacted by phone at 250-489-9070 or by email at ujuras@gmail.com.