The local chapter of the Royal Canadian Legion approached the City of Estevan at Monday's council meeting to make them aware of their troubling financial situation.

"The legion is in financial trouble and its something that's been coming on over a number of years," explained the new Tresurer of the Legion Leonard Grube. "As new members of the executive, we discovered the way things were done with the book keeping, and no one realized how bad of shape we were in.

"We have a figure of sixteen thousand dollars that we owe to some businesses that is overdue. That's the amount that we presented to council to make a decision on. We owe a lot more than that, but those are the ones that are well overdue."

Grube spoke about the options the legion presented to council.

"If they gave us a grant that would be greatly appreciated but if not, even a low to no interest lone just so we could pay those large amounts off and have a bit of pressure off of us."

Along with staff being cut to lower expenses, a major focus moving forward is bringing in more events to the legion and organizing all aspects of the group so something like this wont happen again.

"We now have an actual book keeper to get the current year up to date. Our ways and means committee has been doing a fantastic job for the last six months. We have paid a number of things off and we are doing everything we can to do things in the legion that will bring in more money. We have run some of these dinner shows that have brought in money for us, we had a number of hall rentals and those are the types of things we need to focus on. 

"We're going to be sending information letters to all the businesses to see if anyone can provide any sort of donations to help solve the problem. We just have to wait and see what happens here with the city."

Councelor Dennis Moore was quick to show his support to a group that has been a part of Estevan for quite some time.

"Right away we want to help and assist the legion, they've been so good to this city and area. We'll help them get out of their condition and for sure it will bounce back. We just need some new players keeping track of whats going on. There's no reason why we as citizens of Estevan can't help the legion get back on track."

"I'm glad they came to us, it had to be a tough call. To not to do anything about it and watch it dissolve wouldn't be a good thing. These are all people we work with and deal with, we have such a good community and we'll help them in their tough times," Moore concluded.

READ MORE: City Council Recap - August 14th