Parks and Recreation Director Jordan Schechtel presented the policy at the meeting, which he said is based largely on one put in place in Moose Jaw. The policy had previously come up at the town’s parks and recreation committee and had already gotten their approval. Among the ideas put forward at the meeting was awarding naming rights for the Battleford Arena; also put forward was an idea to put up a billboard in front of the rink that could be used to put up advertising. The naming rights discussion was particularly animated. The proposal in the draft policy was for a 10-year term for arena naming rights at $15,000 per year.
A number of crime categories saw declines in Battleford in 2020 compared to 2019. Persons offences are down from 125 to 108, business break and enters down from 11 to four, residential break and enters down from 29 to 19, other break and enters holding steady at five, property offences down from 317 to 276, drug offences up from seven to 11, criminal code offences even at 120, traffic collisions up from 15 to 17, impaired operation of a motor vehicle up from 20 to 32 and provincial traffic offences down from 95 to 83. For the fourth quarter, calls for service were up from 263 to 278. In that quarter property offences saw a big jump from 46 in 2019 to 68 in 2020. Meanwhile, criminal code offences were down from 30 to 21.