Mayor Shari Decter Hirst - 729-2202 - City of Brandon

Mayor Shari Decter Hirst - 729-2202
Phyllis Miller, Executive Assistant - 729-2202
________________________________________________________________________________________
On Monday, we relaxed the “international rules of librarians” and had our Coffee with the Mayor in the
Brandon Public Library. A big thank you goes to Kathy Thornborough and her team for suggesting the
idea. It was well attended by people who live in the downtown area. Council met Monday evening.
On Tuesday, I met with American Consul, Tim Cipullo, to talk about issues of mutual interest. Later that
afternoon, I toured the Women’s Resource Centre which is undertaking a variety of projects to raise
awareness of Domestic Violence Week. Tuesday evening was a fruitful meeting of the Pedestrian “Hub”
Steering Committee. We have a very solid plan coming forward and a strong commitment to downtown.
Wednesday I participated in “Take Our Kids to Work Day” and was joined by Neelin Grade 9 student,
Sonia Somersall. Our day started at the Municipal Adaptation Planning Workshop where I brought
greetings and spoke of the impact on Brandon of extreme weather events brought on by climate change.
Flood mitigation, drought, water conservation, greenhouse gas emission reduction, storm water drainage
management were all on the table for discussion with lots of good ideas from participants. Sonia then
met with senior staff at City Hall to get a sense of how the Mayor’s office worked. At noon, we had a
lunch meeting with the GM of the Provincial Exhibition to discuss the economic impact of major events in
Brandon, and the vision of the Dome Building. Most of our afternoon was spent in a Canada Games
meeting. We also attended ACC’s National Technology Week Tech showcase, and the Whitehead
Foundation meeting as the mayor is a member of that board. Because Sonia had a math test on Thursday,
she did not attend the Volunteer Appreciation Event organized by Community Development, which was
too bad as the energy in the room created by 300+ volunteers was amazing. Well done CD staff, it was an
outstanding evening. Councillors Isleifson, Roberts, and Blight and I had a marvellous time.
Thursday evening had lots on the go with a Brandon Area Planning meeting, a joint ward meeting of
Richmond and Green Acres, and the Provincial Ex’s Taste of Beef event. Fortunately, cloning technology is
available.
On Friday, I attended the MPI 40 th Anniversary Luncheon. On Saturday, I will be attending the Art Gallery
of South Western Manitoba’s Fascinator Tea Party Fundraiser. Fascinator’s are those tiny hats that are
found perched at a jaunty angle on the side of the Duchess of Cambridge’s head. Saturday evening, I
attended the 26 th Field Artillery Regiment’s Military Ball.
Of course, these events were amongst the many meetings dealing with building a prosperous community
that are part of the Mayor’s schedule.

Scott Hildebrand, City Manager - 729-2204
Kathy Vandale, Executive Assistant - 729-2204
________________________________________________________________________________________
The group charged with creating an effective and engaging communication strategy had their first
meeting this week. A number of actions to enhance both internal and external communications, using a
wide variety of mediums, were discussed. Allison Collins will be moving forward with creating a
document to capture the discussions. Having a culture of open communication conveyed in a number of
ways, in order to reach as many people as possible, is a priority of this Council and Administration.
CONTACTS:
Allison Collins - 729-2590
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello all! This is my first opportunity to contribute to council updates since beginning my job with the City
of Brandon on Oct.19.
By way of background, I have spent the past nine years working in Brandon’s news media, first as a
reporter/announcer at CKLQ/STAR FM Radio and then as a political/city hall reporter with the Brandon
Sun.
Yet, even with such a solid ‘Wheat City’ background, I have been pleasantly surprised with how seamless
the transition has been for me into my new role as Director of Communications with the City of Brandon!
Over the past few weeks, I have worked with city staff to publicize, among other things, a new solar light
initiative in the East End Dog Park, an exciting economic development partnership with Ukraine, a huge
morale win for Brandon at the National Communities in Bloom competition in Quebec City and the launch
of a spiffy new website for Brandon Fire & Emergency Services.
I have also met with a number of departments to discuss how I can help them best promote their
messages to the public. In addition, preliminary work is already underway for the creation of a
comprehensive, effective and engaging Communications Strategy for both internal and external use by
the City of Brandon.
With the vision, passion and determination to make this city great that I have already witnessed from city
staff and council, I must say it’s a very exhilarating time to be joining the City of Brandon team!

CONTACTS:
Linda Poole, Director of Emergency Communications - 729-2406
Karen Warren, Deputy Director of Emergency Communications - 729-2402
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Linda Poole will be attending the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials conference in
Ottawa next week. One of the conference highlights this year is emerging technologies, and how they
affect the emergency services world.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
CONTACTS:
Fire Chief Brent Dane - 729-2404
Deputy Fire Chief Garry Bell - 729-2401
Deputy Fire Chief Steve Romanik - 729-2452
______________________________________________________________________________________________
We welcomed three students for “Take Your Kid to Work Day” on November 2 nd . Matthew McArthur
shadowed Public Ed Officer/Inspector Troy Lamerz to explore the role of education and communication of
fire safety to the community. Phillip Goernert shadowed Group 3 to explore a career as a
firefighter/paramedic. Sammuel Mickle shadowed Training Officer Cory Parrott to discover how the
science of bio-chemistry is used by EMS personnel.
Inspector Richard McCurry attended the MB Building Officials Association Conference in Winnipeg. A
highlight involved a case study of major hoarding on a property and how the City of Winnipeg with
various contractors and legal advice worked to clean-up the property. It took 9 days to clean-up the small
acreage and 2 years in the legal system to date. Legal proceedings continue.
Training Officers Eric Boudrealt, Cory Parrott and Deputy Chief Romanik attended the InterAct 2011
Conference joining information sessions on EMS development in Manitoba as well as the MB EMS Awards
Banquet. A presentation was given about the proposed future changes to the ARML and individual EMS
licenses’ programs. This will assist the department in developing necessary training to ensure our
paramedics remain fully qualified.

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” As Christmas carols grace the air waves everywhere, the
committee has been once again planning the annual City of Brandon Staff Christmas Party.
Announcements have been sent out, so, be sure to book your calendar for Thursday, December 8 th from
4:00 to 7:00pm to share the Christmas Spirit with our colleagues.
It is with great excitement that BFES in partnership with our IT department launched our new website:
www.brandonfire.ca. The new site coordinates with our department logo and gives us the opportunity to
showcase the services we offer with updated photo galleries. It will also provide links to our community
partners for programs such as Lock Boxes as well as connecting our students to Sparky’s website. Added
functionality and security means that our clients can obtain vital fire safety information in languages
other than English and respond to our ambulance patient survey online.
CONTACTS:
Vicki Fifi, Director of Human Resources – 729-2164
Sandra Wallace, Human Resources Officer – 729-2246
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Workplace Health and Safety
Over the past two months Greg Brown has been assisting two Brandon University nursing students with a
community health project. In conjunction with Healthy Brandon these students developed, advertised
and presented a Lunch and Learn workshop on Ergonomics in the workplace. 30 representatives from
several businesses in the community attended this workshop. The presenter was Alex Stuart an
Ergonomist with Safe Work Manitoba.
As part of “Take Your Kids to Work Day” Greg Brown spoke to grade 9 students at Vincent Massey and
Crocus Plains schools about safety in the workplace. This was done in part with the Safe Workers of
Tomorrow presentations that were taking place throughout the Brandon School Division leading up to
Take Your Kids to Work Day on November 2.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

CONTACTS:
Todd Burton, Director of Information Technology – 729-2297
Jason Kelusky, Manager of Information Technology - 729-2298
___________________________________________________________________________________________
October Website Stats
The following Website Statistics for October show the number of visitors to our main website as well as
the 10 most popular Brandon.ca pages for the month. In addition, below are the stats for some of the
most popular sites we look after. ***Please note that October of last year was our most popular
_________________________________________________________________________________________
month (number of views/visits) of the year because of the election. Our current numbers are still
above that.
Page Views are the number of times a specific page was opened.
Unique Page Views are the number of times a specific page was opened by a different computer (IP
address)
This month Last month Last year
Brandon.ca - Oct 2011
68,407 - Pageviews
26,846 - Visits
Brandon.ca - Sept 2011
69,331 - Pageviews
28,021 - Visits
Brandon.ca – Oct 2010
51,940 - Pageviews
24,459 - Visits
Rank Brandon.ca Page Title Pageviews Unique Pageviews
1 Brandon.ca Main Page 20,315 16,530
2 Brandon.ca Careers Page 8,274 5,627
3 Living in Brandon 3,634 2,900
4 Purchasing & Tenders 2,949 1,941
5 Doing Business 2,806 2,120
6 Website Search Results 2,617 2,350
7 Calendar of Events 2,106 1,956
8 Accessing City Hall 1, 902 1, 530
9 Visiting Brandon 1,101 1,395
10 City Services 1,151 993
Site Pageviews Visits
Economic Development 3,685 1,495
Sportsplex 13,587 4,176
Fire 789 279
Transit 3,782 1,589
Police 21,055 10,172
BAPD 736 276
Gis.brandon.ca (maps) 9,099 4,386
Facebook

The City’s Facebook page continues to prove to be an excellent communication tool. If your ward or
department has news items that you would like to provide to the public, please contact us at
helpdesk@brandon.ca.
THIS MONTH LAST
Post views
(# of times Fans and non-Fans have viewed a news Feed
item)
New Fans this month
(# of people who have “Liked” our page, new this month)
Monthly Active Users
(# of people who have interacted with or viewed our page,
both Fans and non-Fans, this month)
Post Feedback
( # of comments or likes made on a news item or post from
the City )
Twitter - @CityBrandon
Tweets
(# of times I.T. has posted a tweet)
Followers
(# of people who are publicly following Brandon’s Twitter )
MONTH
82,659 107,986
22 37
3,382 3,517
75 53
THIS MONTH LAST
MONTH
225 115
216 185
Brandon Fire and Emergency Services, in conjunction with the City of Brandon Information Technology
department, is pleased to unveil the newly redesigned brandonfire.ca website.
The new site has been updated and enhanced with a new fresh look; complete with a blue, white and red
theme. In addition to its previously-established information resources, the revamped site provides a
number of new features, including:
• Cross language capabilities across all areas of the website using Google Translate;
• improved web accessibility for the visually impaired;
• improved search capabilities;
• compatibility for mobile devices;
• an events calendar;
• fire safety information for new Canadians
The redesign of the Fire and Emergency Services website follows the update and launch of the City of
Brandon’s main website in July. The City of Brandon will continue over the next number of months to
modernize websites for its various services.

CONTACTS:
Rod Sage, General Manager – 729-2247
Ian Broome, Director of Public Works – 729-2292
Perry Roque, Director Community Services – 729-2170
Tim Sanderson, Director of Transportation – 729-2130
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
COMMUNITY SERVICES
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Community Development
Perry Roque attended the National Recreation Summit October 23 to 26, 2011. For three days, 200
respected leaders in Recreation Development, Governmental Affairs and Public Policy Analysis from
across the country explored the challenges and opportunities facing recreation.
Together, they began identifying the steps needed at the National, Provincial/Territorial and Municipal
levels to deliver on recreation’s great potential to address some of the crucial issues of our day.
During the two days, participants explored four key themes:
• Confronting Canada’s public health crisis
• Respecting nature and our environment
• Building community
• Contributing to public sector and social innovation.
International Women’s Food & Craft Market
The last International Women’s Food & Craft Market of the year takes place on Saturday, November 19th.
Over the 2011 market series over 50 vendors have participated and there have been over 500 visits to the
markets. In addition to the multicultural packaged food and handmade crafts that will be available for
sale on the 19 th , visitors can enjoy a variety of entertainment throughout the afternoon.
It’s the last chance this year to try and purchase a variety of ethnic foods and crafts. Don’t miss out on
picking up some unique gifts and treats for the holidays.
Vendors and community members are also coming together to raise funds for the family of Dyanny Nunez
Bonilla, a young girl from Honduras who passed away recently in an unfortunate accident. The
participating women and organizers believe that the market is an appropriate venue to organize and
extend our support to the family during this challenging time.
The market takes place on Saturday, November 19 th at Knox United Church from 1:00 – 4:00pm.
Communities in Bloom Criteria Awards

The City of Brandon returned home from the 2011 Communities in Bloom National conference with some
prestigious hardware in tow. Despite unprecedented spring flooding forcing the city to withdraw from
competing in the five bloom competition category, the city competed in several of the individual criteria
categories evaluated in the National Communities in Bloom program.
In the Community of Gardeners category Brandon received honourary mention and placed within the top
three finalists. This category demonstrates involvement from all stakeholders within the community along
with the municipality’s participation and support.
The City of Brandon was successful in its effort to meet the criteria with its Floral Displays. Evaluated in
this category are the efforts made by the municipality, businesses, institutions and the residential sectors
of the community to design, plan, execute and maintain floral displays of high quality standards. It was an
honour for the City to receive such high-status recognition and be recipients of the Floral Design
Outstanding Achievement Award, presented by the National Capital Commission.
Volunteer Appreciation Event
Wednesday, November 2 nd a Volunteer Appreciation Event was held to recognize those individuals who
volunteer for various programs offered by the City. There are more than 350 dedicated volunteers, many
of whom volunteer in more than one capacity, that work relentlessly helping to enhance the quality of life
in our city. Although we respect and appreciate the work of these individuals on a continual basis, this
event is a special opportunity to say thank you.
SPORTSPLEX
The following is a list of the number of individuals that were in the building in October:
Number of Individuals in the Building
Pool 1,676
Arena 957
Racquetball 38
Membership Swipes 1,292
Arena – does not include # of participants who were on the ice with arena rentals
All eight candidates successfully completed the NLS Course in October.
The Jingle Bell Arthritis Walk will be taking place on the track Sunday, November 6 th from 8:30 – 11:30
am.

CONTACTS:
Chief of Police Keith Atkinson - 729-2305
Inspector Shane Corley – 729-2302
Inspector Ian Grant - 729-2304
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Inspector Ian Grant
Effective Monday, November 21 st , 2011 Inspector Ian Grant will be seconded to work with the Provincial
Government, Department of Justice for a ten month period. This secondment will conclude on Friday,
September 28 th , 2012.
Inspector Grant has been seconded as a Policing Services Consultant with Policing Services Branch,
Criminal Justice Division, Manitoba Justice and will report directly to Mr. Glen Lewis, Executive Director of
Public Safety and Strategic Initiatives, Criminal Justice Division.
Change of Command 26 th Field Regiment
Chief Atkinson attended the Change of Command Ceremony in Shilo on October 29 th , 2011. Lieutenant
Colonel Dave Dalal has taken over command of the 26 th Field Regiment.
Building Update
Construction Progress: Week Ending November 4 th , 2011
Exterior:
- The masonry has been installed along the south elevation, gridline 7a-13.
- The masonry has been installed along the east elevation, gridline A-K.
- The masonry has been installed along the north elevation, gridline 1-3.
- The electrical trenching and conduit installation has been executed in the parking lot area.
- The roof decking for the Operations garage has been installed.
- The light standard bases have been formed and poured.
- The front entrance slab has been poured.
- The installation of the gypsum for the exterior walls is on-going on all elevations.
Interior:
- The holding cell roof slabs have been formed and poured.
- The electrical wall rough ins are on-going in the steel stud locations.
- The plumbers have continued with the installation of the water mains for the building.
- The plumbers have also been roughing in the bathroom walls.
- The HVAC installation of the laboratory ventilation is on-going.
- The HVAC runs and VAV installation is continuing.
- The structural steel channels required in the East Corridor is on-going.
- The temp heat preparations are underway.
- The temp water meter is being installed this week.

CONTACTS:
Dean Hammond, General Manager of Corporate Services & City Treasurer – 729-2244
Val Rochelle, Director of Finance - 729-2223
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Property Tax Credit Programs
In 2006 and 2007 Council passed three by-laws to implement tax abatement programs for eligible properties.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Below is a summary of the activity within these programs.
Total by
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Property
Home Renovation Tax Assistance Program - By-Law No. 6873
Three (3) year program, maximum $500.00 per year
60 – 6th Street North
Residential Tax Abatement Program - By-Law No. 6875
Five (5) year program
831 - 19th Street
Renaissance District Tax Credit - By-Law No. 6814
Ten (10) year program, credit reduced to 50% for years 6 to 10
22 - 6th Street
356 - 13th Street
# 3 19 - 9th Street
# 4 19 - 9th Street
144/146 - 10th Street
132 - 9th Street
148 - 10th Street
Total by Year
481.06 490.54 500.00
1,471.60
393.61 431.67 825.28
516.77 568.46 613.24 1,891.11 1,959.50 5,549.08
501.68 583.98 655.27 501.70 562.72 2,805.35
705.43 748.78 786.34 813.69 844.46 3,898.70
764.95 812.97 854.57 804.85 836.95 4,074.29
12,319.01 12,958.10 11,461.24 11,954.92 48,693.27
3,870.82 3,870.82
2,562.06 2,562.06
2,488.83 15,514.26 16,358.06 16,366.20 23,023.10
With respect to the Renaissance District Tax Credit there are three additional properties that have been approved
for the tax credit and are currently undergoing renovations. These are located at 638 Pacific Ave (Massey-Harris
Building); 640 Rosser Ave (Former Trade Fair Exchange Building); and 1001 Pacific Ave (CP Rail Building).