City council met on Monday night to discuss a number of topics on their agenda.

Fitz Bramble was introduced during council as the Economic Development Coordinator for the city.

Fitz (Dwight) Bramble speaking to members of council on Monday night.

"We're very excited to bring a person into place with the city with the experience that Mr. Bramble has," explained Mayor Roy Ludwig. "What we are looking at optimistically is bringing new business, industrial tourism and perhaps a manufacturing base. These kind of things to help expand our city and to grow."

"Now is not the time to sit on our laurels, we have to keep moving forward and looking at what we can do to attract business to our city. We have an economic development board that is an arms length from the city. Mr. Bramble will be getting policy and direction from that board and our city manager. Short and long term planning and policy will be set by the economic development board."

It was just over three weeks ago during the August 14th city council meeting where the Estevan Royal Canadian Legion came forward to the city to request financial support. Since then a number of fundraisers and donations have been made that has helped them climb out of their immediate dark financial hole.

"Once it went public, we've had donations towards their initial debt of $16,000. Short term they had to cover that, so it's my understanding that they are there, if not over that level so that their immediate problem is behind them. I'm very happy that the city did not have to come forward. If we did, we would be looking at getting it paid back in some terms so fortunately that did not have to happen. Thank you to the community who always come forward when some one is in trouble, I think they are quite comfortable now with moving forward. I'm not surprised that when they were down and needed help that our community came together to support them."

Another topic was the cities interest in acquiring land from the RM of Estevan. Mayor Ludwig mentioned that talks have been ongoing since 2014.

"We have had many meetings with the RM and discussions back and forth. Looking 30 years down the road we know that we would have to expand so that were looking at doing that sooner than later. If we don't do it sooner then we're looking at development on our borders or within where we need to expand so that you would already have RM development within the city and vice versa. Rather than have that happen and it get confusing, we are looking forward and looking at the growth we have had in place and it's something we should do."

Ludwig noted that the relationship between the city and RM is still a good one, but the two sides could not come to an agreement on the matter.

"As we move forward we will see where the RM stands. We recently got the resolution from the RM that they did not want to negotiate any further and we are now going the provincial route that was laid out before us."

"The RM just felt uncomfortable at this time negotiating annexation. We'll have to keep moving with the guidelines that we have in front of us. The land being discussed is north of the city up to the bypass," Mayor Ludwig concluded.

It is noted that the city is set to host an open house to show why the city wants the land and what exactly it's purpose would be.

The Estevan Bruins community events permit was approved for a tailgate party on Friday, September 29th before their game against the Yorkton Terriers. The city also approved a new amortization and new capitalization policy that will be further discussed in the near future.