The parking lot east of the arena is the Town's property

Ideas on what to do to attract more people that wish to live in Bruderheim

By Walter Schneider

A few things about the state of the Town's properties

For us to be able to attract more families — families with children or planning to have children — to come to Bruderheim and settle here, a little extra is required.  As good as Bruderheim looks, it must and can be made to look better. 

Maybe that is what Bruderheim is doing, but one has to wonder. 
   A few years ago it had been decided to contract the public works department of the County of Strathcona to perform the maintenance work necessary to keep the Town's infrastructure up to par and operational.  The state of repair of all communities in the County of Strathcona is clearly visible to anyone visiting them, and it is impressively good.  It appears that Bruderheim's state and quality of repairs don't measure up to theirs and are substandard. 

The cleanliness of, and quality of weed control on, town properties make an impression on visitors.  It will leave a good impression on visitors to see grass cut, but it will also leave a bad impression to have them see weeds growing out of control.  The photo at the right is of the parking area east of the arena.  Are those dandelions being grown for extra income or to leave a good impression?

A first step to solve that would be to have someone go around with a weed trimmer to cut down the grass and weeds that the lawn tractor can't reach.  A second step should be to invest in a weed sprayer, or, if one is already available, to make good use of it.  By the way, the best time to spray dandelions is right after a rain, before they start to go into bloom and begin to spread their seeds, but of course, you knew that.

Dandelions are nice to look at when they are in bloom, but they set seed rather quickly and multiply into a pest that infests everything in town.  As nice as some people may think dandelions look when they are in bloom, we have too many of them growing on town properties.  It seems to me that the towns located in the County of Strathcona don't have a dandelion problem, while the Town of Bruderheim appears engaged in cultivating them.  That may not bother the people that have to keep them under control, but it will bother visitors that wonder why we have so many dandelions growing around here.

In the afternoon of June 2nd, Leo Genier and I spent a little over two hours cutting and trimming some of the grass and weeds around the Arena and on the west- and north side of the old curling rink.  Kelly Rudyk, the Chief Administration Officer for our town, told Leo that there was no pressing need for getting weeds trimmed around town because in July the Town will hire a few summer students to do that.  Well, why wait for July if we can do it now, and there will be enough re-growth between now and July that the summer students will not have to fear running out of work.

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Posted 2006 05 21
Updates:
2005 06 11 (This page was a portion of a previously larger page.  It got partitioned off to reduce loading time.)
2006 10 29 (reformated)