Mondays Council meeting got thru a fair amount of material. The residential development zoning bylaw is moving ahead. A # of different motions or amendments to the Motion demonstrate how important and difficult it is going to be to arrive at a bylaw that council and the community feel represents the direction we want our city to take for the future. The public hearings will be set for the evening hours for the new bylaw so we can get the citizens involved. I will post the date of the public hearings as soon as it is set. Monday finished off with a bunch of meetings and then headed to GP. I spent Tuesday in Grande Prairie with my grandsons who are in Grade 5 and Grade 6. I attended their class rooms and we talked about municipal governments. The grade 6 classes are studying local govt so it was very interesting to hear their questions. I was also very impressed how informed they are on issues. Yesterday was in the office for a bit and then home with my bride who was under the weather. I guess the benefit of being Mayor is a can take a family day. Today is a day for some local children, I am going to be Santa for a day at the local day care. They were in a pinch and you just cannot say no to a group of kids who need to sit on Santas lap. There has been a bit of concern over the recent announcement or the new sewer charges in the city. I want to explain a bit of the information here and will be going into a more detailed review in the coming weeks. The sewer project has been a capital project for the city for a number of years. The main sewer line running west to east along about 108 ave was at or over capacity for a number of years. So much so that there were homes along 108 ave and Chamberlain drive flooding with raw sewage in the springtime. Some homeowners were unable to get insurance after the 3rd or 4th flood. I, along with council made it a priority to get a sewer trunk line added from approx. 13 st and Alaska ave to take the added volumes from the north side of town and direct the sewage from 13 st along the railway tracks to John Deere on the Rolla road and divert it to the lagoons. This new sewer trunk line was also needed for all the new residential construction happening on the north side of town. We put the trunk line along the railway tracks to minimize construction impacts to streets, residential and business properties and it was far more economical to take this route. I went to Ottawa in February to specifically gain CNs approval for an easement which they gave us for about $20,000.00. The total budget for the project was anticipated at approx. 8.6 million dollars. It had to be a priority (my opinion) for 2014 to ensure we had a safe and adequate sewer system for our residents today and tomorrow. We tried to gain some financial help from the Federal infrastructure program but it was not ready when we were moving ahead with the project and we could not wait another year to try and get the money as it would have been more of an impact to residents. If we waited to try and get some help (no guarantee) then the residents in our city who were being flooded would have had even more impacts with the added development north of town. We did not have additional resources from the Fair Share revenue as that was also being allocated to completion of other projects. The option to borrow the money was the only option other than not proceeding. I supported the option of getting the work completed. Not only for the residents affected today but for the growth of the city. The project was completed in 2014 on time, and was completed for what we anticipate will be under 8 Million or approx. 8 million, final billing etc is still not completed. I want to emphasize here that the project was completed in the time projected and did not cost us more that what we budgeted which has been a concern by residents on past capital projects. The 8 million dollars had to be borrowed and has to be repaid. I do not like to the increases on our sewer charges but also am prepared to take the criticisms as I was in favor or getting this project done for the core infrastructure our of our city. I stated in my campaign for Mayor it was unacceptable in my view peoples homes in our city were flooding with raw sewage and I would work to rectify that issue. You elected me as Mayor to lead and make decisions on behalf of the city. Some are critical the Mayor is not planning or council is not planning appropriately. Going to continue to make decisions for the city to move us forward. I want folks to think about the statement people in our city had their homes flooding with raw sewage Not acceptable or appropriate in a city like ours and I will make this decision again today if I had to.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:06:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015