For Nakusp’s mayor Karen Hamling, 2016 was a year unlike anything she has seen in her 20 years on village council.
From staffing issues and upsets over snow clearance, to finding ways to improve tourism, it’s been a unique year for the village.
In terms of staffing issues, the Village of Nakusp has been running a very tight ship. For most of the year a lot of village employees have been on either short-term or long-term disability.
“It was a hard year to try to move forward, but the staff that we’ve got kept moving forward,” she said.
Staffing issues aside, there have been some very positive happenings in and around the village as well.
Funding was received for the Trails Master Plan, and a marketing plan for the Nakusp Hot Springs.
The village’s Common Agenda has also been doing well.
“That is a group of people that have been meeting for the last couple of years from all areas of Nakusp, meeting under the direction of Columbia Basin Trust,” said Hamling. “They work with us to find out where the community wants to go, and how the Trust can help us.”
One way the Trust has helped the Common Agenda was to assist in developing a tourism strategy around social media, something Hamling thinks will be a real plus for the community.
A company came to the village at the end of the year, holding a day-long course and working with residents, showing them how to use social media sites and applications like Instagram and Twitter, and how they can use these applications to promote Nakusp.
“It was very interesting because they show you how if you’re putting things on Twitter or Instagram people start following you,” said Hamling. “So people from other communities start seeing more and more of your community and will come here for a visit.”
While there have been many ups in Nakusp throughout 2016, there have also been some downs.
Toward the end of the year many residents brought attention to the fact they weren’t notified about a change in payment plans for utility billings. The village is still in the process of figuring out what happened.
“That was fairly upsetting for staff and for council because it did cause people problems and discomfort, and we don’t like to see that,” said Hamling. “We’re trying to put something in place so that doesn’t happen again.”
Snow removal has also been a hot topic of discussion in recent weeks.
During the last snowfall, village crews were heavily criticized for how they handled clearing the streets, Broadway in particular. Many took to social media to voice these criticisms.
Hamling hopes in the year ahead residents will come to council and council meetings more often if they have any questions or concerns.
“I’m hoping they’ll take more time — if they hear rumours — to talk to council members or talk to staff and find out what’s really happening instead of hearing something negative in the street and assuming that’s what’s happened.”
Looking ahead to 2017, Hamling is excited for the various projects that will be taking place over the next year including a downtown revitalization project. Among the improvements the project will see new sidewalks in the village. This is something that is very much needed, as things like foot traffic and salt on the sidewalks in winter have loosened up some of the bricks to the point where they can easily be removed.
Hamling is also looking forward to celebrating both Canada’s 150th birthday and Nakusp’s 125th birthday. So far, no solid plans have been made for the celebrations, but there will be a delegation making a presentation the village council meeting on Jan. 24.
