Wellington North is not alone in its concerns over the long-lasting impact tight deadlines may have on municipal projects being constructed now.
At the Aug. 9 council meeting, Treasurer John Jeffrey alluded to the local issue of the second layer of asphalt on Egremont Street. The township has received a commitment under the Building Canada Fund program for the reconstruction of that street. The project includes the placement of two layers of asphalt.
In other similar projects, the first layer is put in place.
When the construction of a road is finished, the road is allowed to settle for at least a winter before the second layer is put into place. Doing that allows time for problems with the construction to come to light and to allow repairs.
However for the project to get the maximum funding, all work has to be completed before March 31. That would mean the second layer of asphalt would need to be placed in the fall of 2010, “without allowing the time for problems to be identified and repaired.”
In order to allow the time before placing the second layer, the township is proposing the March deadline be extended to allow the asphalt placement in the spring of 2011, after the frost has left the ground.
Township staff have requested a meeting at AM0 with the minster in charge of the Build Canada program to ask that the date be extended.
Jeffrey said there was an issue in the News recently with the federal government regarding a lot of the stimulus funds that may not be spent because those projects will not be able to be completed by next March.
He said Wellington North is facing the same issue, because it would rather not proceed with the second layer of asphalt on Egremont Street this fall.
Jeffrey believes there are a lot of other projects in other municipalities that will have difficulty meeting that March 31 deadline.
Mayor Mike Broomhead said the issue will be discussed at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO)?conference in Windsor this week.
Councillor Dan Yake added “We have talked with Perth Wellington MPP John Wilkinson on this issue. We can’t understand why those two levels of government are providing funding for these projects, then putting such strict deadliness on them.
“They are unrealistic basically, especially on a roads project such as this,” he said.
Yake hopes the deadline will be extended.
“We’ve been waiting a long time to get that road done and I’d hate to see having to rush to put the second layer of asphalt down. I’d like to see it done properly.”
