Tonight: A Brier bid, policing costs and dollars for doctors

It’s council night tonight and we’ll be livestreaming the entire meeting on LOCAL2 (watch for a direct link to be posted later this afternoon) starting at 4:30 p.m

Here’s a quick look at a few items that are on the agenda:

City council will be asked tonight to proclaim its support for a potential bid for the 2017 Brier.

The Soo Curlers Association, the city and Tourism Sault Ste. Marie are looking into the bid process and are asking council for its endorsement to begin encouraging citizens to place refundable deposits on tickets for the hypothetical event here.

The city’s physician recruitment and retention committee will ask council for $100,000 this year.

Committee figures show between 2002 and February 6, 2015, 108 physicians were recruited to practice in the Sault, while 61 departed.

26 of those doctors departed to practice medicine elsewhere, 26 retired, four were deceased, with another five listed under "other."

Sault Area Hospital (SAH) and the Group Health Centre (GHC) will also each be asked to contribute $100,000 to the committee's campaign.

How much does it cost to police our city?

Chief Robert Keetch is expected to tell us tonight.

The police report for council states 2015 is a challenging year to come in at a zero percent budget increase, since changes made in 2013 and 2014 have affected the 2015 budget.

Those changes include drug enforcement unit re-location costs, the community mobilization project on Gore Street, the installation of mobile data terminals in all patrol vehicles and computer system upgrades.

We'll archive the meeting for those of you who miss something or just want to go back and watch the good parts again.

If you want to follow along, the city agendas are posted here.

Previous council livestreams:

Replay: February 9 City Council meeting

Replay: January 26 City Council meeting

Replay: January 12 City Council meeting

(PHOTO: City council chambers are pictured in this SooToday file photo)