Niverville’s council kicked off the new year with its first council meeting on January 6. With Mayor Myron Dyck absent, Councillor Nathan Dueck officiated the meeting in his new role as deputy mayor.
“We have an extremely exciting year [going into] 2026,” Dueck said. “There’s probably going to be a lot of new projects started and a lot of new builds. I think there’s a lot of stars that are aligning.”
Whether a French school for Niverville is one of those stars, Dueck would not speculate. At this meeting, though, council passed conditional use permits for the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine (DSFM) to use two spacious facilities in the Niverville Business Park for the purpose of storing school equipment, furniture, and supplies.
One subject council could talk about was the the future expansion of Niverville’s fire department and public works building. According to Dueck, it was a topic of much discussion at the last budget planning sessions.
The design process for the dual-purpose building is already underway. It won’t be until council sits down to prepare the new budget that it will be clear when shovels hit the ground.
The new building will be constructed on the existing site, just west of the civic office.
“Some [parts of the existing structure] is coming down and some things are going up,” said CAO Eric King. “Ideally we’ll have the [public works] shop done by fall and then the old building gets torn down and the fire hall goes up. It’s a highly timed thing and the fire hall will operate out of the shop [for a while].”
Another topic of optimism revolved around local medical services. Dueck says that the renovated space at Open Health Niverville is almost ready for use.
“We have a line on, I believe, two doctors right now that we’re looking on placing this year,” said Dueck. “We’ve set some targets that we’d like to see two to four added this year.”
Currently Open Health has around 13 doctors, some on a part-time basis while others are full-time. The clinic board is also looking at the feasibility of expanding office hours into the evenings and weekends in order to provide care for more clients.
Also in the design phase are plans for Highway 311 renewal just west of the railway tracks. In light of a recent three-car accident along that stretch, many residents feel like it can’t happen fast enough. King says he anticipates an announcement to come from the province in the coming weeks.