Mayor Charlie Clark delivered his State of the City Address at a luncheon Tuesday hosted by the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce where he said the 2022 Growth Monitoring Report states that based on the latest predictions, in the next 20 years the Saskatoon region will reach 500,000.  The Mayor says when he was elected to Council in 2006, there was barely over 200,000 people and now the population is 342,000.

Clark quoted the President of the University of Saskatchewan, who said that 20 years ago, their statistics showed 75 per cent of their graduates would leave the province and now that has been reversed. He pointed to the growth including two new bridges, River Landing development, a new Persephone Theatre, the Nutrien Wonderhub operating out of the former Mendel Art Gallery and the rebuilding and expansion of Gordie Howe Bowl.

One of the changes, as the city grows, could be a new downtown event and entertainment district. Clark says a lot has happened in the last year. A proposed site has been selected and now there is work on plans and quantifying the costs for what would be the largest project the city has seen if it comes to fruition. The goal is still to not have any increase to property taxes to pay for the district, which Clark explains means needing to leverage everything they can from the provincial and federal governments and from private businesses and organizations, along with revenues generated from the district itself.

The Mayor also noted that the next two-year budget is going to be challenging because their revenues are still $10 million behind 2019 with parking and leisure centre memberships down and the inflationary cost of business. As well, with two large snowstorms in the past three years needing city-wide snow removal, that will now have to be added to the budget, because chances are they will become more of a regular occurrence, and they can’t have a deficit budget. When asked, the Mayor couldn’t give a maximum property tax increase, but said in June the City will release its preliminary rates. The hope is not to have to cut services.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Mayor Clark said he was very sorry to hear what happened to Shercom Industries. The tire recycling business had to shut down its tire processing operations when the Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan didn’t renew its contract. TSS operates in the province under a Ministry of Environment approved Product Stewardship Program. Shercom is still manufacturing product, but is no longer accepting used tires from Saskatchewan, so they will have to get their tires from outside of the province. Crumb Rubber Manufacturers based out of California is setting up a facility in Moose Jaw to collect 40 to 100 per cent of Saskatchewan’s tires. Mayor Charlie Clark hopes a solution can be found.