Over 500 corporate officials, local business owners, city council, and chamber of commerce members gathered in the Delta Hotel for the State of the City Address from Mayor Sandra Masters.
Masters spoke on the city’s future plans for development and business. She also highlighted what already makes Regina so desirable and how those attributes need to be expanded.
She spoke on the catalyst committee developments and how they will add to Regina’s charm. She also explained that the city can no longer settle for ‘good enough’ in its development.
Masters owned the fact that Regina’s downtown has not held up a good reputation from having the second-worst growth rate in the country in past years, some of the highest crime rates, as well as aging water pipes and infrastructure around the city.
“We’re operating in crisis Response as opposed to forward,” says Masters.
She shared her beliefs that Regina’s future development plans and community involvement might just be the thing to put Regina back on the right track to move forward.
She says those connections will attract more people to come visit and live in Regina.
Masters echoed the importance of how strong Regina’s community is and how the people are the main tourist attraction. Therefore, community involvement from the residents is essential.
“Really encouraging the citizens; if you feel comfortable and you have disposable income, get out into the community, support our local restaurants, go try some different cultural food, go listen to a string quartet, try something different. We don’t have to leave our city for culture, we have so much of it here,” says Masters.
She explained that enticing more people to visit and live in the city will contribute to the city’s economic goals of growing and maintaining the population, the workforce, and quality of life.
“If we don’t grow, our tax base will erode. We know that we have 4000 job postings on SaskJobs here in our city so in order to expand and meet the needs of current business, we need to employ people,” says Masters.
“If we’re going to attract and keep people here, we need them in order to build the industry. We need more commercial business because that’s what actually alleviates some of the burdens on the residential taxpayer.”
While encouraging residents to work on integrating themselves into the community more, he explains that the five catalyst committee projects will help residents do just that and it’ll help revitalize the downtown area.
City Council will discuss the next steps of action for the catalyst committee’s plan for a new indoor aquatic centre at next week’s meeting.
On top of those points, Masters also added that the city is continuing to work with all levels of government to enhance social services, housing shelters, mental health, and addictions services, policing services, and much more to improve the quality of life in Regina and to continue making those necessities easily accessible to residents.
