FORT FRANCES—After being turned down again and again for government funding to fix the Portage Avenue underpass, the town got some good news Monday when the province announced it will be giving Fort Frances $1.06 million under the Rural Infrastructure Investment Initiative (RIII).
“It was a long road,” Mayor Roy Avis said during Monday night’s regular council meeting. “We spent over two years now, we were turned down twice by COMRIF.
“But through the efforts of our management team here and through some of the decisions council has made—whether we should apply for the full amount or half the amount—plus the delegations we sent down to OGRA, and also the trip myself and the CAO took two weeks before that, I think all that has paid off,” he added.
“Now, we as the Town of Fort Frances, are the recipient of $1,060,000. A job well done by everybody.”
The mayor also thanked Public Infrastructure Renewal minister David Caplan and the Liberal government “for thinking of us.”
“We’ve received quite a bit of money in the last short while,” Mayor Avis noted. “The library last week and this grant this week.
“It’s been a good effort on our part and on theirs.”
As previously reported, the town already had been aiming to go ahead with the $2.1-million underpass reconstruction this spring, but had applied the RIII for funding to help cover the cost.
They had requested the province cover 50 percent of the cost, which it ended up doing.
Contractor tenders for the underpass work already have been awarded, with work expected to start the first week of May and be completed around mid-November.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
