RM of Portage developing Community Enhancement Plan for community improvement

The Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie is very happy with the progress being made on the Oakville Community Center so far.

Reeve Kam Blight heard a presentation from the club during their meeting last week, where they needed to ask for a larger loan than previously thought. Originally, the group was looking for $700,000. The amount has been changed to $1.2 million.

Blight says the volunteers and community members have made this initiative work.

"They have done such an amazing job in fundraising and putting this all together. The RM of Portage la Prairie is proud to support the Oakville Community Club in this sense, in providing the funding to make sure that this project can go forward and so that they are eligible to receive those grant dollars that they worked so very hard to get," says Blight. "This is something that's just a definite boost to the community. It's just going to improve and enhance the lifestyle of living in the community of Oakville and in the RM of Portage la Prairie. We're very pleased to be able to support it in this manner."

Council unanimously approved the first reading for the loan, and the second and third reading will come up at a later meeting. This loan is the bridge financing the club needs in order to get a number of grants to ensure contractors can get paid. Blight says projects like this are critical.

"We want to make sure that we have vibrant communities in the RM of Portage la Prairie. Oakville is the largest community that we have in the RM of Portage, but we have a lot of other communities that are home to a lot of our great residents and we want to make sure that we're doing things, whether it's just beautification, little things like that, just to try and enhance the way of life living in these communities and we just want to improve that lifestyle," says Blight. "So, those are steps that we're taking. We want to see what is needed and where we go from here, and it's just a plan that we're working on."

He says the Community Enhancement Plan is in the conceptual stage and they will be identifying needs of all communities in the RM to see where improvements can be made. Construction for the hall is expected to start next month.