It proved to be a busy 2020 for the City of Williams Lake and its staff when it came to projects.
The biggest project the City had to work on was to repair the River Valley, a project that will continue into next year.
Mayor Walt Cobb said that he has to give City staff a lot of credit when it came to their work with the River Valley, as without their work, it could have been much worse.
“All the extra overtime they’ve had to put in to make sure everybody was as safe as they could be and ensured that our lagoon system wasn’t further jeopardized,” he said. “It would have been even worse if we hadn’t been able to get on it right at the very beginning, and we lost our lagoon system. I don’t know how you would operate a municipality this big without a lagoon system, without a sewer system. It would have been much worse, and I have to give credit to our staff for being on the ball.”
As for projects next year, the City will have plenty to work on.
“The hospital is supposed to start preliminary work depending on the budget by fall of this coming year,” Cobb said. “We’ve got the Botaino Mall project that’s coming along. Our housing study is supposed to be in, and we are supposed to have a draft here before the year-end.”
Cobb said that housing would be a big focus for them in the new year.
“It doesn’t matter who we talk to, housing is a huge issue, and we have to get something settled here in the new year,” he said. “If we want to encourage, whether it be police, nurses, doctors, whatever, if they want to come to our community, we have to make sure that we have a place for them to live.”
He noted that overall, he felt 2020 was a good year for projects in the City, though they didn’t accomplish everything they wanted to.
“Some of the projects that we had budgeted for didn’t get done, so that allows us to have a little surplus but also allows us to put those projects into this coming year; hopefully, they will be able to be done this year.”
Cobb added that the projects didn’t get done due to the River Valley and City staff’s work.