From the Mayor’s Desk: Karyl Richardson retiring
By Kathy Wurz – Mayor of Luseland
Our administrator Karyl Richardson is retiring at the end of February 2024. Our assistant administrator will be stepping into the role of administrator effective March 1st, 2024. The town council would like to thank Karyl for her many years of service and wish her the best.
The Rink Improvement Committee is currently seeking tenders for structural work on the arena. Please contact the town for more information. The town council has also approved a request from the committee to take over the use of the subdivision for the purposes of seeding and harvesting crops as a fundraiser for the rink improvements. The crop profits generated in the past several years were used to go against the remainder of the swimming pool loan. The Rink Improvement Committee has also taken over the Trip of the Month fundraiser and has almost sold out its tickets for 2024. The first trip draw will be March 1st and is a trip to Los Cabos, Mexico at the Riu Sante Fe.
The Luseland/Salvador Hall Board is currently looking for someone who is interested in running the projector for movies at the hall. The current projectionist, Michael Hagel, is unable to continue his volunteer efforts running movies due to his busy schedule and will be stepping away from the hall/theatre committee. Please contact the town office if you have interest in helping run movies. We also are excited to announce that the Luseland Credit Union has graciously donated $8,500 towards the purchase of a new projector for the hall. The projector went down late last year and we are currently ordering a new one and hope to have movies running again very soon.
The Luseland mall still has one open space available for rent. This would be a great opportunity for someone interested in starting a business as rent is very affordable and utilities included in the rent. If interested in a space, please contact the town office at (306) 372-4218.
The KLD Foundation (Kerrobert, Luseland & District Health Foundation) will be having a hospital lottery in 2024. As the committee serves many health needs and gets many funding requests, they have decided to begin an annual lottery to help continue to support health priorities in our region. This year’s prizes include a new truck, a seven-person hot tub, a Traeger smoker and an early bird cash prize of $10,000. Some details are still being worked out with the lottery license but we hope to soon have tickets printed and open sales if all goes well by April or May. The committee intends to have 5000 tickets for sale at $100/piece. Stay tuned for more details.
Luseland town council had a strategic planning meeting on Tuesday, February 6th, 2024. We had put out a public survey some time ago and analyzed the data at the planning meeting. Council hopes to align publicly identified needs and priorities with our long-term plans. Some of the priority items on the council’s agenda is upgrades to water infrastructure, new equipment and the demolition of some tax-title properties on our main street. The meeting was very successful and many other needs were identified and will be fit into our budget processes.
The town office is undergoing some improvements right now. Our building is jointly owned by the town and the R.M. of Progress No. 351. We have a joint building committee that is currently working on some much-needed upgrades. The building will be being painted inside and new flooring installed over the upcoming months. We appreciate our partnership with the R.M. of Progress and in the maintenance of the building. We also recently had a generator installed so that in the event of an emergency, the office can act as a command centre and services will not be halted by a power outage.