The Downtown Area Redevelopment Committee (DARC) has a new member and several reappointments.
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The item, brought forward during the June 22 regular council meeting, requested the appointment of Keegan Bendixen to a two-year term. It also requested the reappointment of Stephanie Lindsay and Ben Harrison for four-year terms, as well as Cheryl Ross, Teri-Lynn MacKie and Steven Hickman for two-year terms.
Coun. Michael Diachuk asked if there was a restriction on the number of years someone can participate on the committee.
“We did in past terms of reference have a limitation to those amount of years that you could serve and it has since been removed,” explained Katlin Ducherer, the city’s economic development officer.
Coun. Michele Charles Gustafson pointed out how important the downtown is to their discussions.
“I think it’s very fitting that we’re appointing the DARC committee as we’re going to be talking about the economic development plan and how the downtown is part of that focus around the visitor economy,” she explained.
Ducherer also gave an overview of some of the members serving on the committee.
“We do have a fantastic DARC committee they have served, some of them since the beginning of the committee,” she said. “We do have a wide range of people on the committee. We have Steven Hickman, who has that capital background and that kind of infrastructure background. We have Stephanie Lindsay who is a downtown resident, she lives and owns a house in the downtown. We have Kerry Million who owns numerous businesses downtown.”
While DARC has been successful in securing a youth voice with the appointment of Lloydminster Youth Council member Keegan Bendixen, it has fallen short in other areas.
“One piece that we struggled with was that Indigenous representation (on the board),” said Ducherer.
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