Monday, March 15
MUNICIPAL HERITAGE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (12:15 pm): Receiving a communication from Heritage Saskatchewan about four working groups it has set up to address heritage issues in the province.

Tuesday, March 16
PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE (4 pm): First up, administration will respond to a request to see if traffic calming is needed on Woodhams Drive — a road that feeds into the new Greens on Gardner suburb. Turns out, no, it won’t.

After that, the committee will look at a Waste Plan Regina report in which city staff make their much-anticipated recommendations about how to improve Regina’s waste management system.

Will Regina finally join the rest of the country by implementing a citywide curbside recycling program? Or will the cheapskates and tax-averse planet haters reign with their “Don’t raise the mill rate!” stylings? Well, you’re just going to have to click to read more if you want to find out….

You can chalk up a small win in the green economy column. It looks like we will be getting curbside recycling. Yay! (Assuming Public Works and Council say it’s a go, that is.)

Not surprisingly (and a little disappointingly), staff went with option number 2, the so-called “Enhanced” residential service. (And not the waaaaay cooler and much more daring option 3, “Comprehensive.”) To facilitate its implementation, the report recommends staff work out the niggly details of a recycling program — things like what recyclables should be picked up and who should do the up-picking, that sort of thing — and prepare a full costing of whatever program they devise. Expect to see all that done by the fourth quarter of 2010.

Staff is also recommending that the city go with Option 2 – Extended Services for Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (IC&I) waste and the same option for Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste. Now, I have to admit that in our coverage of the Waste Plan, we haven’t paid much attention to IC&I and C&D waste. Apologies.

Worringly, the word “voluntary” crops up a lot in the IC&I service recommendation, so it’ll be interesting to see how debate evolves around this recommendation. Anyone with thoughts, insight or opinions on industrial and construction waste, please take full advantage of that comment button.

Wednesday, March 17
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (11:45 am): Will be doling out some special event funding: $18,300 to the Regina Multicultural Council for Mosaic and $5,000 to the Regina Arts and Business Awards for the Mayor’s Arts and Business Awards.

COMMUNITY AND PROTECTIVE SERVICES COMMITTEE (4 pm): Considering a report that looks at the number of calls the city receives about outdoor firepits. Apparently, some people find them obnoxious. And by some, I mean the 43 who called in to Service Regina last year.

Thursday, March 18
ARTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE (5:30 pm): Reviewing the process for adjudicating applications to the 2010 Civic Arts Funding program

MAYOR’S TASK FORCE ON ACCESS (5:30 pm): Will be considering feedback from users of Paratransit obtained at an event in September. Also looking at the committee’s annual report for 2009.