Virden Mayor Tina Williams expects to have a busy term on council, and she says improving her community will happen in different ways.

Williams is a two-term councillor and she spent the past term on council as deputy mayor.

“One of our big things right now is trying to get our downtown revitalized. It has worked really well for towns like Russell and we’re working on a similar project here in Virden.”

“Another big one is improving communication with our citizens. We’re in the age of social media but we forget what gets to social media or the local media doesn’t mean it always gets to ratepayers. We’re trying to come up with a better overall plan to get everyone involved.”

Tina Williams is encouraged by how much residents want to get engaged in town business and development. “I’ve told people we’re going to reach out to engage with you and you have to want to engage back.”

The Town of Virden is working on a new logo and rebranding it. The town is working to get new benches, bike stands and garbage cans in the downtown area. “It’s a slow process but we’re going to be doing some paving and bridge work in and around Virden next summer. Some of that has to take place before we can get into other things.”

Tina Williams feels Virden is in good shape and she points to things like their new town well, water treatment plant and new sewer treatment plant.

“With our water well, our expenses are coming down quite a bit because we don’t have to use as much chemical as we used to. We still need to fix up water and sewer lines and we’re like every other town in Manitoba and we do have a few extensions and expansions we want to do but we’re in good shape with our infrastructure,” said Tina Williams.