Regina city council voted in favour of several things at Monday night’s council meeting, including giving the green light to covering the cost of councillors losing a federal tax exemption.

In 2017, the federal government announced that city councillors will be losing their one third tax exception from income taxes in 2019. On Monday night council voted to use $108,000 to cover the costs of the loss of the tax exception for councillors and the mayor. The $108,000 will be spread proportionally among council and the mayor.

Council also voted to pass a motion to expand the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District’s zone. The BID will now expand their coverage to east of Broad Street between the train tracks and Saskatchewan drive. The move will add 15 businesses to the BID and BID will provide them with side walking sweeping, litter and graffiti removal and some security monitoring at a cost of $47 - $600 per year for the businesses.

The Tartan Curling Club building lot is also going to be rezoned as a mix of residential and business use. The Tartan Curling Club amalgamated with the Caledonia Curling Club earlier this year and the building has been sold.

Councillors also discussed if city council positions should be made into full time positions. Currently, council positions in Regina are part time positions. Former Regina councillor Louis Browne, who spoke at the meeting spoke on Monday and said he thinks councillors in Regina should be full time, citing his years of being a councillors and all the work that was involved. Council voted to pass this motion along to administration to gather more information.

A member of the public also addressed council on Monday night about transit hours on weekends. The resident lives with a disability and can’t drive. He relies on public transit. He said the hours on Sundays limit what he can do for recreational activities and he called on council to expand the hours or allow riders who have a disability to use a subsidized taxi service to get to where the need to go too in Sundays after hours.

Currently transit hours on Sundays are from 8 a.m. to until 7 p.m. Council voted to move this item to administration to look at the costs and how many riders would be using transit on Sundays after hours.