Representatives from all over Saskatchewan are joining together at the 2024 Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) Convention and Tradeshow this week. According to the SUMA media release, over 1000 representatives from Saskatchewan’s cities, towns, villages, resort villages, and northern municipalities will be at the event running April 14-17.

Joining the SUMA events on Tuesday will be the seventeenth annual Saskatchewan Municipal Awards. West-central was included in the winner's circle, as the partnership between the Town of Outlook and RM of Rudy over the past couple years earned them the "Regional Cooperation" award for 2024.

"The Town of Outlook and the RM of Rudy No. 284 worked together to address concerns raised over the long term viability of fire and rescue services by addressing a need to repair relationships within the region." shared the release.

The two officially partnered together in October 2022, after already working together for a majority of the calendar year. The relationship should benefit the area for the years to come, as once it became official, the two sides were able to approve "an aggressive capital investment strategy which will combine municipal reserves and taxes, fundraising and community corporate investment to fund necessary capital improvements over the next 5 to 10 years".

Outlook CAO Kevin Trew will be on hand to help accept the Saskatchewan Municipal Awards honour. Trew commented on the joint crews forming a "full-fledged-effort" back in 2022, an initiative mostly led by the RM of Rudy. Paying off almost instantly, the unit came into possesion of a 2023 Ford F550 4X4 equipped with rescue tools, including new Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) equipment and also the ability to house other existing equipment.

Already honoured at SARM back in March, Trew and the rest of the award winners will be on stage Tuesday for the chance to once again highlight their incredible work. Selected through the Saskatchewan Municipal Awards Committee, the four winners came following the reviewal of twenty projects submitted by 28 Saskatchewan municipalities.  

You can find the complete schedule for the week at SUMA HERE.