In the spirit of interactive dialogue, the RM of Ritchot held a series of open houses in each of their five communities in the first weeks of December. Three topics were presented for discussion: the recreation master plan, improved internet services, and the Ritchot Connect app which will provide better communication between the RM office and residents.
Amber Mamchuk, Recreation Director for the RM, opened the meeting on December 10 in Ste. Agathe with an introduction to the background and purpose of having a master plan.
“The recreation master plan provides a roadmap for the next 20 years,” said Mamchuk. “We tried to include as much information as possible… so that at the end of the day, when projects come to our table, we have an idea of where they fit in. The final report will make recommendations for park and facility development, recreation program delivery, how best to support our volunteers, asset management… and a sustainable funding model for recreation.”
The project began in 2013 when the council of the day conducted a recreation needs assessment. This provided a foundation on which to build. Five years later, much has changed in the communities in terms of population growth and demographic shifts. This prompted council to reassess and begin actively working towards more decisive action with longer-term thinking.
The municipality, as a whole, has ten recreation facilities and nine public parks. The investment in this infrastructure amounts to roughly $65 million.
“It’s very important that we have a plan that sets direction for these facilities and takes into account how we make recommendations to council and allows council to make the best decisions,” Mamchuk said.
In February 2018, council hired landscape architecture planning firm Scatliff, Miller and Murray and recreation planning firm Jack Harper and Associates to provide joint professional direction and insight into the master plan. The combined bid to provide the study came in at $60,000. The municipality was responsible for $35,000 of the cost while the balance of $25,000 came from the province’s Strategic Municipal Investment Fund: Recreation Feasibility Study grant.
Mamchuk accompanied the consultants on guided tours of each facility and park. According to Mamchuk, the consultants were impressed with the facilities and the potential they saw in each of the parks.
From there, a project steering committee was formed comprised of residents from each community. This committee acted as a sounding board to the consultants throughout the process. Together, they created a recreation survey which was made available to every resident. In November, consultants, steering committee members, and council met to review the survey results.
The survey attempted to glean information on the demographics of each community. It polled for opinions pertaining to expectations on quality of life, the kinds of recreation programming people desired, the level of volunteer availability the RM could expect, as well as ideas for parks and facilities.
Out of 6,679 residents, 296 completed surveys were returned. Based on the assumption that most surveys were filled out on behalf of a household, the survey feedback represented 12.7 percent of households in the municipality, a number that Mamchuk believes provides an adequate cross-section of the region.
On a scale of one through ten, residents ranked the quality of life in Ritchot at an average of just over seven.
“The consultants have done this survey in many communities and they said that anything over a seven is a good response to quality of life,” Mamchuk says. “I think it could be higher, so we’ll have some work to do ahead. Just for a little bit of perspective, we’re above Hanover and Neepawa and just behind the municipality of Headingly.”
The survey also indicated that 47 percent of respondents would be willing to pay more in taxes to have better parks, recreation facilities, and programs.
“This doesn’t mean that we’re going to jack everybody’s taxes up so that we can build some fancy splash park somewhere,” Mamchuk noted. “But what it does mean is that if the right project came along and it was well planned out, that people are willing to pay a little bit more for that project depending on what it is.”
With the research completed, the consulting firm has advanced to the drawing board to prepare a final draft plan that will be presented to residents at an open house on Tuesday, January 22 at Pioneer Hall in St. Adolphe. Here, residents will have an opportunity to sit down with the company’s representatives and review their various recommendations for each community.
Mayor Chris Ewen took on the second subject of the night: faster internet services for all businesses and residents in the municipality. This was a topic of great interest to the Ste. Agathe residents in attendance who, according to Ewen, have the poorest internet service in the area.
Ewen described the plan that council had previously been investigating, a plan that a few other communities in Manitoba had already invested in: the development of an RM-owned and purveyed fibreoptics system. It quickly became clear to council that this plan came with risks beyond what they were prepared to bear.
Since that time, council has joined forces with 13 municipalities surrounding Winnipeg, all members of the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region (WMR), all of which share an interest in bringing affordable high-speed internet to the region. On December 13, JohnQ Public Inc., the 13-member collective, is scheduled to make a major announcement at the Legislature in Winnipeg in regard to improved internet services to rural Manitoba.
The Citizen will share more details of the scope of that project in the coming days.
Finally, RM staff member Tanya Waddell introduced the last topic of the night: the Ritchot Connect app. The app was introduced this past summer by Ritchot’s council as a means for the municipality to offer its residents a twenty-first-century solution to better communication. Notices can now be sent out from the RM office to residents in record time via phone calls, text messages, and emails.
The app provides many options to residents for connectivity, allowing them to choose their method of delivery and select the types of topics they’d prefer to be notified on. The use of the app will go a long way to saving the RM office time and money in terms of sending out mailings and posting notices.
It is a useful tool for announcing local emergencies, community events, public hearing notices, council news and updates, and changes to garbage and recycling pickup. Because the app uses a GPS system, it also allows the municipality to narrow their message area to a single community, or even a street, meaning connected residents will only receive news that pertains to them, such as water shutoff notifications in times of emergency.
The RM office’s long-term goal is to have at least one member from every Ritchot household signed up to Connect. Their immediate goal is to have ten percent of the population signed up by the summer of 2019. According to Ewen, they are well underway in achieving this goal.
