It was an eventful 2018 for the Portage la Prairie Chamber of Commerce. From construction issues and new business announcements to discussions with current proprietors, there was little relief in such a hectic year. Board Member Preston Meir says one of the highlights of the year was the problems resulting from the west-end overpass closure.

Re-opening of the west end overpass was one of the big issues the Chamber tackled this year."We had a bridge closure," says Meier. "Traffic was re-routed around Highway 240. We knew that some businesses reached out to us and we reached out to others who were affected by that. Through some lobbying and showing the government that we had some business issues with it, we were excited to see that they did re-open the one lane to give us access from the west end of Portage."

Meier also notes one of their strongest areas this year was communication with businesses and their ability to sit down and solve problems together.

"We had a bit of a re-organization of our organization," notes Meier. "Really trying to identify what our business member needs were. The best part of that was our engagement strategies that came into place. We have a great communications team. We were able to sit around the board table with a number of businesses around town and talk about some of the issues they have on a daily basis and some of their challenges."

Meier acknowledges the overpass is still an issue but he hopes the situation becomes clearer in 2019.