4 | City of Winkler included a 60 percent leap in new single residential units and a jolting jump in multiple family units of more than 200 percent. “There’s been a real boom in housing construction, and it sure seems like something is happening inWinkler,” says City Engineer Johan Botha. Now for his part, to be sure, Botha is less interested in determining the causality compelling all this activity, but is more geared toward making sure municipal infrastructure is properly serving the needs of the community. Botha leads one of the smallest, yet arguably most-capable of any city engineering department one will encounter in Canada. Though he’s not one to particularly brag (quickly acknowledging that he has an Engineer-inTraining, technical assistant “wizard” and a wonderful lady who provides administrative support), the fact remains Winkler has saved vast sums of money due to Botha’s engineering prowess, and that’s something Winkler Mayor Martin Harder didn’t have any problem bragging about during a recent ribbon cutting to open the city’s new water treatment plant. In acknowledging the services that will be provided by this $4 million investment, Mayor Hardin also recognized that the planning aspects and the project engineering of the job were completed in-
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