Hand In Your Nomination Papers Today!

Nominations are now accepted for Municipal Elections.

You can hand in your filled out nomination papers starting today at 9 am.

Kirk Dawson, the City of Dauphin’s Senior Election Official, says it’s already been busy at city hall.

“You can drop off your nomination papers if they wish to run for mayor or council. That runs through September the 18th at 4:30 PM. We’ve had a brisk start to the day.”

He encourages anyone handing in their packages to have a few extra signatures.

“We ask for 25 eligible voters’ signatures to be nominated. But we ask for two or three more just to ensure that there are no complications in last minute, whether maybe the person hasn’t resided in the city for six months or something that might disqualify them for some reason. By getting an extra three or four then it really makes the process very simple and avoids any last minute delays in getting nominated.”

The names of those on the ballot will be announced next Thursday at one in the afternoon in the council chambers of City Hall.

Details: Contributed by Josh Sigurdson; Published: Sep 12, 2018 - 12:07 pm

Manitoba’s Electoral Divisions Boundaries Commission wants to hear your opinion about where you vote in provincial elections.

The commission is holding a public hearing tomorrow at 10 in the morning in the Lion’s Den at the Rec Complex.

Alison Mitchell Manager of Communications & Public Information with the commission explains why this change is going on.

“The Electoral Divisions Boundaries Commission is something that is legislated to happen every ten years in the province to ensure effective representation for all Manitobans. There is a commission that does all the initial work and makes the proposals on how the electoral divisions should change. But public participation is a primary part of the review.”

She shares some of the issues people typically have concerns about.

“People may have voted in a particular place for a long time and have an association with a particular community and if there’s a change coming there may be a concern that that’s not going to fit with their views of their community. Or it may not reflect the way they see their area of the province. That’s why there is room for this public consultation. We do really want to get a sense from Manitobans of what’s important.”

If you want to attend the meeting, find out where the lines are suggested to be changed to and to see how the population is divided to go the commission’s website at boundariescommission.mb.ca.

Details: Contributed by Josh Sigurdson; Published: Sep 12, 2018 - 9:15 am

Canada postal workers are closer to going on strike.

They voted in favour of strike action if a deal couldn’t be reached between the union and the company.

They could go on strike as early as September 26th.

The union says about 8,000 rural letter carriers earn at least 25 per cent less than their 42,000 urban colleagues.

Details: Contributed by Josh Sigurdson; Published: Sep 12, 2018 - 9:04 am

Next week, from September 17^th to the 23^rd Tim Hortons is putting on the Smile Cookie Campaign.

The campaign is to support over 500 non-profit organizations in Canada.

Tim Hortons chose to support Whitmore School in Dauphin.

All money raised in Dauphin goes towards the Whitmore School Play Structure Fund.

For each cookie sold, 1 dollar gets donated. Cookies are 1 dollar each.

Details: Contributed by Isaac Wihak; Published: Sep 12, 2018 - 8:57 am

The fire ban in Prairie View Municipality and the RM of Lakeshore has ended.

Both the Rorketon Fire Chief and the Ochre River Fire Chief the RM of Lakeshore is lifting their fire ban effective immediately.

As of today, the ban is lifted in all three wards of Prairie View Municipality including the town if Birtle and Miniota.

The municipality still cautions lighting fires if conditions in your area are dry or it’s windy.

Details: Contributed by Josh Sigurdson; Published: Sep 11, 2018 - 1:36 pm

Last night at 6 pm, the Dauphin Fire Department was called to a garage fire on 10^th Avenue SE.

The owner of the property was barbequing, they went inside their house to get some utensils and when they came out, the surrounding area was on fire, leading to their single car garage and RV Camper to be on fire.

The fire was under control and put out rather quickly.

The firefighters had to stay longer due to live voltage from fallen hydro lines. Manitoba Hydro arrived on scene to make it safe.

Details: Contributed by Isaac Wihak; Published: Sep 11, 2018 - 1:22 pm

Nicole Chychota is the RM of Dauphin’s new Chief Administrative Officer.

Chychota started her new role yesterday.

She is excited about this new opportunity and shares what drew her to a government job.

“The government always intrigued me and I was always interested to learn how it all worked. I think the Dauphin Municipality has been able to do a lot of great things for the residents and I wanted an opportunity to have a job where I could continue that great work for everyone.”

She shares what she’s looking forward to as the new CAO of the municipal government.

“I’m just looking forward to the challenge of the job. I think it provides a lot of learning opportunities and a lot of opportunity for growth and I just think it’s a really wonderful opportunity for growth.”

Chychota grew up in the small farming community of Oakville Manitoba and received her Bachelor of Business Administration at Brandon University. She's lived in Dauphin for many years. “About four and a half years ago I moved to Dauphin, and I worked at Sigvaldason McMaster & Company where I took my Chartered Professional Accountant designation.” She continues talks about what she thinks of Dauphin, “I absolutely love it. I’m an outdoors person. I love fishing and quadding, and all of that. I think this is an absolute paradise for anyone who loves to be outside.”

Details: Contributed by Josh Sigurdson; Published: Sep 11, 2018 - 11:13 am

On Wednesday this week from 6-8pm at the Watson Art Centre is the Manitoba Outreach Tour.

The Manitoba outreach Tour is for Indigenous youths that are emerging music artists.

On Wednesday, Rhonda Head, the special coordinator with the Manitoba Arts Network will be giving an information session about the Manitoba Arts Network and the Emerging Artist Program. Part of the program includes a little concert from hip-hop artist, HellNback.

The program is free to attend.

Details: Contributed by Isaac Wihak; Published: Sep 11, 2018 - 9:11 am

Dauphin’s history is celebrated in a new condo building being built in the community.

A new four floor, 24 unit building, is set to be built on 1st Street Northwest later this fall.

Project manager Don Buhler talks about the project.

“It’s going to be 24 units in it. All of them are spacious two bedrooms two baths ranging between 1000 and 1200 square feet. Each one has its own private balcony with a glass railing. It’s wheelchair accessible with an elevator in it. There’s a common room with a kitchen and direct access to a fitness room and to the outdoor living area. There are heated indoor parking as well as outdoor guest parking.”
Project manager Don Buhler shares the name of the building and why they chose it.

“This condo is going to be called Gartmore Place. That’s a tribute to the Gartmore settlement in Dauphin. When the settlers began to arrive in the area, Gartmore was one of the original settlements south of the existing CN tracks. Gartmore school was situated along the present day highway 5 bypass. Many farming communities that are still in Dauphin today started their family legacy in Gartmore. So we want to honour that history and our plan is to picture some of those building and some of that history in the common room.”

Buhler commented about the construction that’s set to begin later in the fall and finished by the end of 2019.

“We’re going to try and be as non-invasive as possible. The site will be fully fenced in, and we’ll try and keep the construction vehicles in the fence as much as possible. There’s undoubtedly going to be the noise and busyness associated with construction, but we’ll do our best to keep the construction site tidy and safe and be good neighbours.”

Details: Contributed by Josh Sigurdson; Published: Sep 11, 2018 - 8:59 am

It’s been a busy year so far for the Dauphin Fire Department.

They responded to 163 incidents this year. That’s an increase of 16 compared to last year’s 147 at this time.

132 calls came from the city, and 29 were rural responses. Rural consisted of only 18 percent of calls but took 39 percent of the response time.

So far this year emergency response crews put in over 3,313.5 hours in the 132 city responses. They put in just over 2,122.5 in 29 rural responses. They also up in over 1,870.0 hours of training.
The department’s busiest year to date before 2018 was in 2011.

In May they predicted they’d break the record for the busiest year after responding to 39 incidents in that month alone.

In the Emergency Response review for the third quarter Fire Chief Cameron Abrey says no one wants to break the record for most calls. Since May the number of calls slowed down, and the department is 20 calls down from the same time frame in 2011.