Overall, 2017 has been a good but busy year for the town of Kipling. 

"We had a few major announcements and some changes in the town that are very positive for us," stated Mayor Buck Bright. 

"The biggest announcement from the town was the funding for our new water treatment plant, which was part of the Federal Provincial Infrastructure Funding. We're looking forward to having that construction in 2018." 

"We've had at least 5-6 new businesses or expanded businesses start out in 2017 with the liquor stores privatized. We have had a brand new private liquor store with the new construction, which is a gorgeous building. Then we had a 24 hour gym start up in town and a new clothing store, an expanded clothing store, an expanded computer store and a new hair dressers. Those are all things in 2017 as far as business area that the town of Kipling had." 

During 2017, Kipling also hosted some events. 

"We had the Canada 150 parade, which lots of towns had but that was good and we also had a Canada 150 Skating party for the kids," he shared. 

The town of Kipling saw a lot of growth this year as well.

"There's a general sense in the town of Kipling of just home town proud, local business, local people, expanding and starting new business. You can just come to the town of Kipling and you can sense the growth and excitement and energy going on. Come down our main-street and there's some days it's hard to find a parking spot. It's just one of those things where momentum starts and it can kind of continue. Anytime you have local people investing in your town, people are proud of their town and they feel there's a future here and lots of people say there is a future here." 

Next year, Kipling is expecting to have a lot to look forward to. 

"I think 2018 is going to be pretty busy just getting the water treatment plant constructed, I know a lot of citizens are looking forward to that. We did town surveys and water quality for our citizens and lots of citizens for South East Saskatchewan is a major concern. We are really happy that the Federal and Provincial Government came up with funding to help in that aspect," explained Mayor Bright. 

"Council is also pretty conscious of the tax burden that our citizens have to bear and 2017 had the cut backs for the lack of better word from the Provincial Government of Funding. We have to balance what can our citizens afford and growth prospects, that's going to be a balancing act in 2018 to see what that looks like. I think it's going to be a message you'll hear from a lot of towns. What's the funding formula going to look like and how's the 2017 funds cut back from the province impact what they're going to do." 

"Things come up all the time, looking ahead at 2018 you can kind of guess what you have to deal with but there's lots of growth in this area and there's lots of excitement so who knows what 2018 is going to look like for us," he added.

"We would like to get some developers in our community to help with some of the housing and develop housing, that might be the focus of the council in 2018 to see if there's anybody out there that can help us out with that kind of stuff because we are growing and there's lots of things going on in Kipling."