Masters reflects on eventful 2022, looks forward to 2023

One doesn’t have to look too far back into 2022 for one of the biggest stories of the year in Regina: Two city councillors taking the new city manager to court.

The case didn’t come to anything — it was decided in favour of the city manager — but Mayor Sandra Masters said it was embarrassing.

“It lacks a certain level of decorum which folks should expect of their elected officials,” said Masters.
She said looking at that behaviour could have people calling into question the capabilities of city council as a whole.

Going forward into 2023, Masters didn’t seem concerned about council being able to do its job. She said she’s more concerned about the city manager as an employee of council.

“If you think about it, if two of your bosses sued you personally and the balance of them support you, how do you move forward as an employee and have your performance managed, have your targets set for a year or a two-year period when two of them have taken an adversarial position to your performance three weeks in?” she asked.

Beyond the lawsuit, city workings weren’t without controversy in 2022. Coun. Terina Nelson (formerly Terina Shaw) was the object of ire from the community for a few different comments she made which people took to be disparaging against Indigenous peoples.

Masters said Nelson has reached out to people who were hurt by her words and she and all of the councillors have gone through different stages of training on Indigenous culture. Masters said it’s important, as elected officials who aren’t Indigenous, for council to try to understand.

“It’s being sensitive to it, it’s being aware of it, and then using your voice to advocate and to amplify the voices of those who don’t have that same sort of positive experience in a community,” said Masters.

When asked about things the city could have done better in 2022, Masters said it could get better at almost anything. However, she pointed specifically to getting better at letting people know about things happening in the city and implementing further the administration’s efficiency review.

“(It’s about) really changing the mindset of empowering people to be creative and innovative in their approach to what they do but finding ways to deliver services better all the time,” said Masters.

On the positive side, Masters reeled out a long list of accomplishments for Regina in the past year. She talked about hiring a new city manager and new executive staff to get new, fresh eyes and energy on things.

Masters talked about economic announcements made for Regina like the Federated Co-operatives Ltd. Integrated Ag complex and the Viterra and Cargill projects moving forward.

“Those are transformational private investment in our city that create opportunity for more growth on top of that, but really in a larger, strategic sense, signalling to the world that, from an agribusiness perspective, we are a hub of knowledge in industry and manufacturing and processing, for our identity is a pretty big deal,” said Masters.

She also talked about the Pine House Lodge treatment centre coming to the city, the work on new rapid housing units and the new low-barrier supporting housing units being funded by the province and the new YWCA centre breaking ground. Accomplishments Masters pointed to also extended to the arts, like the sound stage opening back up, the renovations at Darke Hall finishing, and Globe Theatre undergoing its renovations.

Masters also gave a long list of events the city hosted in 2022 – including the Grey Cup, which she said the city “knocked out of the park” — and said having people out and in groups again was healthy.

“To have the number of events and the amount of participation that we have had in this city across the year has been really good overall for the psyche of the city,” said Masters.

In the coming year, Masters would like to have even more, including the Mosaic event.

“Bringing Mosaic back will be enormously important because the celebration of our multicultural nature is important. It’s one of those things that feeds into something like feeling engaged and represented in your community,” said Masters.

The mayor is looking to do a lot in the new year with several goals on her plate.

“I will tell you for sure that the North Central community is on my radar and needing some focus and some assistance from everything from building standards enforcement to lighting to programming to safety,” said Masters.

She also wants to keep advocating and co-ordinating with different levels of government on affordable housing and infrastructure. She wants to start real work on planning for vacant land in the city’s core, improving permitting time, and advancing the city’s stature nationally and internationally.
When it comes to what Masters worries about in the new year, she laughed and said she worries about everything every day.

“You never escape the weight of what it means for my kids to be proud to say that they were raised in Regina, for young parents to say that this will be a city of opportunity for their children and they’ll be proud of it,” said Masters.

“You never escape the responsibility you have for everything from safety to livelihoods to condition of assets. You can never walk away from all of that.”