GUELPH/ERAMOSA – Council here has awarded a contract for the installation of an emergency generator at the Royal Distributing Athletic Performance Centre (RDAPC) in Marden.
Council received a report from parks and recreation director Robin Milne at a Nov. 1 meeting regarding the installation of a standby diesel generator at the centre and authorized Milne to award the tender to Arthur Electric at a total cost of $178,000.
Council also approved the capital project ahead of the approval of the 2022 budget.
In 2020, the federal and provincial governments announced $1.05 billion in combined funding through the COVID-19 resilience infrastructure stream intended to build or renovate health and safety related projects in long-term care, education and municipalities, the report to council noted.
The township submitted an application for the supply and installation of an emergency standby generator for the RDPAC.
The RDPAC is the municipality’s back up emergency operation centre, a designated evacuation centre, and is identified as a warming or cooling centre within the municipality.
Milne said due to frequent power outages in the area during the winter months, the generator, in addition to being used for emergencies, will also be nice for business continuity.
Screenshot from the Nov. 1 Guelph/Eramosa council meeting.
“What happens is once we don’t have power we have to close the facility down and when you’re renting the field out for a little north of $200 an hour and you’re down for six hours you, lose an evening of rentals – its $1,200 in rentals lost,” he stated.
“So there is a business continuity perspective to this that also is really appreciated by our renters and clients using that facility.”
The township was successful in its application and will receive $99,050 in federal funding and $24,763 in provincial funding, for a combined total of $123,813.
The municipality will be responsible for the remaining $54,187, which the report recommended be taken from the township’s rate stabilization fund.
Milne noted to council that, as with many industries facing supply chain issues and delays due to the pandemic, there’s some availability issues so the generator likely won’t be installed until late winter of 2022.
“They’ll do some of the civil work this year before the winter kicks in … but it looks like it will be late spring maybe by the time the generator and transfer switch are actually delivered to site,” Milne stated.
“I’ve always been a big supporter of getting generators out, especially to our large facilities, not just for emergency management but for business continuity,” Mayor Chris White said, thanking the federal government and the provincial government for the grant.
“This a generator that would’ve taken us a long time to put the reserves away to get done …
“Unfortunate that we’ve got a bit of a market blip and some of the prices are up, but it is what it is … and we’ve got a great grant there.”
