The heritage advisory committee and public art committee could soon be teaming up to celebrate the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) 100th birthday in 2024.
Members of the heritage committee met recently and encouraged city administration to pass on its recommendation that the art advisory group should brainstorm ways to commemorate the RCAF centennial next year. The air force is expected to kick off its birthday celebrations on April 1.
Coun. Crystal Froese brought the anniversary to council’s attention during the Dec. 18 regular meeting.
“The heritage advisory committee just discussed that it would be really, really quite cool if we did something in public art capacity to recognize the 100th anniversary, considering we have 15 Wing,” she said.
Heritage awards
During its meeting, the heritage committee also discussed how it could acknowledge the war-time houses in Moose Jaw since the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War is in 2025.
Members also set the heritage awards application period from Monday, Jan. 15, 2024, to Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, and would present the actual awards at the council meeting on Monday, Feb. 26.
“Members hope to encourage past heritage award winners to ‘pay it forward’ by nominating others for heritage awards for this upcoming season,” the minutes said.
Veterans’ banners
The committee received a brief overview of the veterans’ banners unveiling ceremony on Nov. 3 and was directed to the city’s website for the 24 biographies. The group also discussed the process for next year’s banner applications; administration said it would update the web page about the veterans’ banner program to reflect the 2024 deadline dates.
Properties at risk
Members debated what could be done about heritage properties that are at risk of becoming derelict, the minutes said, and decided to keep this topic in mind moving forward while creating a list of properties at risk in consultation with administration.
City-owned properties
The committee also discussed its concerns about the upkeep of city-owned heritage properties that have leaseholders, what role it could play with this topic, and the possible recommendations it could make to city council.
This entry caught Coun. Heather Eby’s attention, who asked city administration how many city-owned heritage properties existed. She assumed there was one, but the minutes suggested there were many locations.
Derek Blais, director of parks and recreation, said there were several designated and non-designated heritage properties throughout Moose Jaw but could not recall them all. Instead, he suggested people visit moosejaw.ca/heritage-properties to see the entire list.
The website shows there are 43 designated and non-designated heritage properties in Moose Jaw. However, the city does not own all of them.
Council appointments
During the Dec. 18 meeting, council appointed Froese as deputy mayor, Eby as chairwoman of the executive committee and Coun. Dawn Luhning as chairwoman of the personnel committee, for terms starting Jan. 1 to Feb. 29, or until a successor is appointed.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Jan. 15, 2024.
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