Regina's city council believes the state of the civic employee's pension plan is so dire it's willing to break the law to try to fix it. The plan is facing a mammoth $238 million dollar deficit, a state the pension board insists is approaching a crisis. City council could have voted Tuesday night to increase the amount employers and the enrolled employees contribute each pay cheque. However it chose not to do that.

There's a big difference between cats, dogs and all the other animals people find outdoors around Regina.

The glaring contrast is that domestic animals belong indoors, while all other wild animals belong in their natural habitat with their parents, explained Don Simons with the Regina Humane Society.

It may seem unnatural to some people when they wild baby animals on their own, and even pique their concern to the point that they want to take the animal home.

It’s not easy to be a driver in Regina – once you make it through a winter of ice, snow and icy ruts, it all melts away only to reveal potholes.

We went from winter wonderland to summertime city in just a few short weeks; and with that, come mosquitoes.

The City of Regina has already begun spraying for them; in flooded areas and other standing water.

Ray Morgan is the manager of forestry, pest control and horticulture with the City of Regina. After the record snowfall we had and the flooding that was sure to follow, Morgan said he was expecting that would be a supreme breeding ground for them. He hired on extra staff and arranged for more resources to prepare for it; but so far it's been tame.

The City of Regina is sharing its sandbags with you.

Now that water levels have dropped along Wascana Creek, crews have started taking temporary dikes down and are allowing the public to come pick remaining sandbags up for their own personal use.

You can get them at two locations: 15th Avenue and Pasqua Street or Dewdney Avenue and Wascana Creek.

The City just asks you to take the sandbags from the dikes, not from the pallets.

You’ll be able to load them into your vehicle until 8 p.m. Thursday, and again on Friday from 8 a.m until 8 p.m.

How does the pavement look in your neighbourhood?

Regina city crews started patching potholes last week, that’s late compared to other years when they start the third week in April.

“What we are doing is reassigning our resources so we can hit it hard and still complete our construction season on time,” explained Trevor

Kosolofski, Manager of Asphalt Services for the city. He says they prioritize road repair the same way they do for snow removal.

Regina Mayor Michael Fougere is pledging that action will be taken after this week's two day housing summit.

Two days of talks presented local politicians, developers, and builders with a host of new ideas to consider to improve Regina's abysmal one per cent rental housing vacancy rate. They ranged from suggestions for different housing forms, like the use of pocket suites and shipping container units, to forming different kinds of partnerships with charitable organizations and the private sector.

An Albertan who helped lead the charge to eliminate homelessness in Calgary is imploring Regina to take action before the cost of doing so increases exponentially.

A Tuesday afternoon session at the Mayor's Housing Summit included an address from Tim Richler, who is currently the President and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. He was also part of the group that started Calgary's 10 year plan to end homelessness in 2008.

Parking at your own home isn't normally a difficult task.

For one Regina man who lives in the Cathedral area, it’s been that way for the last two years. Rod Kletchko lives on Robinson Street near Victoria Avenue and said spots are usually all full with people who work downtown.

“Enough is enough,” he said.

“The people that live in the area can’t even park on their own street. You leave for a minute, you come back and you have nowhere to park.”

On the second day of the mayor's long awaited housing summit, they'll be talking about the steps to fixing Regina's housing crisis.
 
"The first step is getting our policies in place which matched the province, and compliment them, and we stack our programs with theirs," said Mayor Michael Fougere.
 
But Fougere said to figure out the next steps there needs to be a discussion.