One initiative in Jasper’s 2009 Municipal Budget is the continued funding of The Skinny community newsletter.  

Initially conceived to address the Patricia Street Predicament, or the problem of late-night noise and vandalism downtown, The Skinny targets 18-25 year-olds and received $15,000 from the municipality for a six-month trial period that has now ended.

The idea for the publication came from a series of public consultations last summer when the community made suggestions and voted on them. Now, the municipality plans to continue funding for the eight-page colour leaflet distributed through local businesses.

In the current budget proposal, $10,000 is allocated from taxation revenue for the production of The Skinny for the year, according to municipal manager George Krefting. 

However, the total operational cost of The Skinny is approximately $30,000 for 12 months. The additional $20,000 will come from private donors, Krefting said. “There are private businesses that have felt that The Skinny is a very valuable production or a very valuable resource,” he said. “So, my understanding is that there is some local businesses that have contributed to it.”

According to Kathleen Waxer, director of Family and Community Services (FCS), it costs about $10,500 to have The Skinny printed bi-weekly for one year at Tekarra Color Lab, though she said she plans to look at the whole operation and reduce costs where possible.

Approximately two thirds of funding for The Skinny goes to salaries, Waxer said. A number of volunteers contribute to the publication, except for editor Bob Covey and designer Tristan Overy, who are contracted for their work. Volunteers not only contribute articles and photographs, but also fold, staple and deliver the newsletter.  

An advisory board for The Skinny is being developed, Waxer said, to spread the workload out among more than just one or two people. “We’d like to have advice from a broad cross-section of young adults who are interested in The Skinny and what other potential things could emerge,” she said.

FCS has compiled a group that’s neither exclusive nor formalized, she said, which includes people who have made submissions to The Skinny in the past, as well as one municipal employee who works for the department of recreation and culture.

“He’s a young adult working for the culture and recreation department, so we’re going to let him do it on his work time,” Waxer said.

Involvement in the advisory board mainly consists of attending meetings. “Our hope is to look at the Skinny growing beyond just being a newsletter to being a venue to hear what young adults wish the community offered and finding ways to make that become a reality,” she said.

Though crime has dropped for this period of time compared to the same period last year, as Sgt. David Maludzinski indicated in his presentation to council in November, he also noted that the metrics used for analyzing the crime rate have changed since last year, making it difficult to use as an indication of the effectiveness of any community initiative to stop crime.

The time and date of the next meeting of The Skinny advisory board has not yet been set.

–with files from Kaitlyn Coholan