Centre Wellington Township council will spend over $1.2-million to rebuild two streets and a park parking lot this fall and next year.
Council approved the plan Monday night after receiving a report from its tender award committee. The plan is to reconstruct Elora Street in Fergus and Melville Street in Elora, as well as improve the parking lot for Victoria Park in Fergus.
For the two streets, reconstruction means rock and earth excavation, a granular base, hot mix asphalt, storm sewers, curb and gutter, and concrete sidewalks.
For the parking lot at Victoria park, there will be excavation, granular base, hot mix asphalt, a storm sewer, a concrete curb, and sidewalks
The lowest bidder, Sousa Concrete, of Branchton, won with a bid of $1,205,472, inclusive of GST and contingency allowance. Council also agreed how the cost overrun would be funded, as the low bid was $230,197 more than the original estimate.
Council will fund the extra costs by transferring cash from sanitary sewer capital reserve ($33,770), Centre Wellington master plan project ($15,000), Victoria hall renovation project ($20,000) and general capital reserve, and transfers from the Jones Baseline and Sideroad 20 projects ($55,000) for $105,960. The remainder will come from 2008 funding set aside for the Bissell Park project.
The amount being spent is close to the amount the township received in a provincial grant around the end of August. Centre Wellington received $1,454,444 from the provincial government from its budget surplus funding program. Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj said council will be meeting soon to discuss where it will spend that infrastructure grant money.
Council also approved a tender for improvements to three township parks for just over $70,000.
Council awarded the work to Playpower LT Canada Inc., of Paris Ontario. The company will design, supply, and install play structures and swing sets in Webster, Holman, and Beatty Park, all in Fergus.
Recreation Director Andy Goldie told council that Holman Park was vandalized this year, equipment in Webster Park is old, and the work in Beatty Park will involve pulling out the current swing sets and replacing them with all new equipment.
Goldie said expenditures will be according to the scale of the parks, with the largest, Beatty, received $30,000 worth of work, and the other two getting $20,000 each.
Councillor Fred Morris asked if there are lights in Holman Park.
Goldie said Holman Parl has lighting from street lights, as do the others. He noted a study recently showed lighted parks often receive more vandalism than those that are not lit, and “darkness is a deterrent.”
Goldie said the worst vandalism in summer occurs in two weeks in June when homework has lessened, and the last two weeks of August, when summer holiday boredom sets in.
Ross-Zuj suggested Goldie prepare the statistics for a meeting being planned in Fergus on Oct. 5 at Melville Church between council, the Fergus BIA, and the OPP.
