In Wawota: Mayor resigns to go to work for town crew

April 17, 2012, 3:01 pm
Kevin Weedmark

After 21 years, Norm Oliver is trading in his mayor’s hat for a hardhat.

Oliver resigned as mayor of Wawota to become a public works employee of the town. He started his new job Tuesday.

Oliver was first elected to Wawota town council in 1988 and became mayor three years later, in 1991.

In the 21 years since then he has been re-elected by acclamation time after time—no one ever ran against him.

Oliver says he feels that the town was getting behind on some maintenance projects, and when a position came open on the town crew, he decided he wanted to try to help catch up on all those projects.

“I wasn’t going to run this fall anyway,” he said Friday. “I think I put my time in. When an opening came up, I thought I would switch positions and see what it’s like on the other side of the fence.”

Kevin Chorney remains town foreman, but former town maintenance employee Dale Wilson has gone to work for the RM of Walpole, and the town has hired both Oliver and Shaun Galger in public works.

“We’re going from two to three people to try to get some work done,” Oliver said.

The former mayor resigned his position before applying for the public works job.

“I’ve known most of the guys for years and years, and it kind of shocked a couple of them that I wanted to work for the town,” Oliver says.

“I just thought I could help. There’s a lot of stuff on a list we were putting off again and again. Kevin was so swamped with the water part and we weren’t getting stuff done.”

Oliver says there’s lots of maintenance work to be done in the town and he hopes to help get the work caught up.

“There just wasn’t enough manpower to go around” said Oliver. “I took an opportunity to help more from the other side. I’ve been around so long I know what needs to get done. We seem to be getting behind on stuff we need to get done.

“We’ve got a lot of street repairs, and there’s a new subdivision we’re working on, a cul-de-sac west and north of the school.

“There are eight lots there, and we’ve probably got two or three sold. We want to put water and sewer in out there.”

Working for the town amounts to coming full circle for Oliver.

“I actually worked for the town many years ago when I was 22 or 23,” he said. “I can run a grader and a backhoe, and I like this kind of work. It’s nice to be working back in town. I kind of lost track of the town working at the Co-op, even though it’s just a few miles away.”

Normally there would be a byelection to fill the vacant mayoral position, but because it’s an election year, Deputy Mayor Don Horvath will preside over town council until municipal elections this fall.

“Hopefully one of the councillors will step up this fall,” Oliver said. “You never know what’s going to happen. It opens up a whole new ballgame to see what happens.”

Oliver says that the accomplishment he’s most proud of in his time as mayor is a public works project, the building of the water plant.

“We were the first to have a full reverse osmosis system,” he said. “We’ve had people come from across Saskatchewan and Manitoba to see it, and some from the States.

“On Monday we’ll have 125 people from the watershed convention in Moosomin come to take a look at it.

“This is a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis system, and it was the first.

“It was a good decision to go that way. We’ve never had any big maintenance issues—it’s running like it’s supposed to run.”

Another point of pride is the splash park and campground that’s just a few years old.

“That really improved the town,” he said. “The campground is good to have, and the splash park gets used a lot. In my years as mayor, probably those two—the water plant and the park—stand out.”

Oliver isn’t the first person in the area to go from being on council to working for council.

In 1993, Ron Wilson resigned his position on Rocanville town council to go to work for the town’s public works department.

In 2001, Neil Russell resigned from Moosomin town council to become the town foreman.