A new fire truck, upgrades to the St Malo arena, Community Centre in Dufrost, and the Otterburn curling club were some of the highlights of 2022 for the Reeve of the RM of Desalaberry.  

Darrel Cure says, “We recently took ownership of a new tanker truck in St Pierre. It’ll be a truck that will be shared with the entire RM.  So, that's a huge highlight. We also got some new vehicles for the fire department for the St Malo Fire department. So, another big highlight there. We also did a lot of work in our St Malo Arena.” 

Cure says, the Otterburne Curling Club has been around for many years and the RM was recently able to help them with grants so they could do the upgrades. “They are independently owned, and because of the grants, they've been able to do some upgrades. It's always good to be part of those kinds of infrastructure upgrades, especially when it’s our own residents are the ones who need help. We stand behind them and we can see that communities thrive because people use those facilities.” 

Cure notes that a new dehumidifier for the ice plant was installed at the St. Malo arena. “It just gives a better experience for the people watching the game....  

The Reeve says 2022 was a year of real growth. “We've been constantly growing. I would say we are on a very consistent incline. We don't have big spikes, but we consistently always move up. We are anticipating some real growth coming to the community of Otterburn. There's a development that was approved there. There is another development that has been approved in St Malo as well, So, I'm expecting there to possibly start seeing some growth in 2023.” 

When asked what would draw people to the RM of Desalaberry, Cure says, “In my opinion, probably the rural quality of life, the small town atmosphere, the friendly people. Just a general, well-balanced community with, I would say, lots of recreational activities and just a lot of beauty.” 

Cure says they’ve had no shortage of challenges, especially when it came to the weather. The wet spring. Lots of snow. The melt and the flood for the farmers. 

“It's always difficult. The farmers struggled with drainage. That's the municipal drains drain into provincial drains, and those are the ones that really need to seek a lot of attention going forward. It did hold up quite a bit of water and farmers in this local area did lose some crops to that but the RM is constantly working with the province to lobby the province to just make sure that the infrastructure is maintained to its fullest so that we can make sure that there are no losses or try to minimize as much as we can.” 

Cure says farmers in the RM were able to recover fairly well. “It seemed like the yields were substantially impressive, so, I think everything worked out in the end, But certainly it was a lot of stress in the beginning, then with everybody's expertise and knowledge I think they did the best of what they could they could do and it worked out.” 

When asked what he anticipates for the year ahead, Cure says they will continue working on community infrastructure projects.  

“We're always looking at wastewater management, We are always keeping an eye on those things to make sure that we maintain our infrastructure to accommodate growth. So there could be some projects coming in 2023. We're always working on recreation, you know, making sure that our facilities are in good condition and we are working towards finishing our recreation master plan for 2023, which will shed some light on some projects and some leads for the year. Then there's always the roads and ditching that we continuously work on. So, those are kind of reoccurring projects.” 

Cure says he anticipates 2023 will be better than last year with less rain because of all the people that struggled with water. “I think 2023 will be a phenomenal year.” 

Regarding the October elections and the RM of Desalaberry council, Cure says, “it's been phenomenal. We've got three new counselors that joined. We've been having a great time. It's a great learning curve for the first few months, but I can say that you know, they've been working very well together. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to the next four years.” 

Related Stories