Duane Hicks
The reconstruction of a portion of Nelson Street, Victoria Avenue, and Portage Avenue is well underway, with crews replacing pipes, moving poles, and building parking lots all at the same time.
Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown told council last night the major project started May 4, and that work has carried on for 17 days so far.
Work on the new Nelson Street parking lot has begun, with the lot excavated and 90 percent of the granular ‘B’ material placed and packed.
Two new catch basins for the parking lot have been installed, along with 55.5 metres of storm sewer piping.
Meanwhile, Victoria Avenue from Front Street to Nelson Street has been excavated down to the underside of the ‘B’ gravel while the sidewalks along the 300 block of Nelson Street have been removed.
All of the concrete rubble and fill have been hauled away to the town snow dump while excess granular material has been brought to Fifth Street lots.
Two crews also have been installing sanitary sewer lines—one crew having started at the intersection of Nelson and Veteran and moving eastward, and the other at Victoria and Nelson, moving southward.
Brown reminded the public that access to the emergency entrance at the hospital presently must be approached from Front Street, then onto Victoria.
In other construction news, Brown said work on the Portage Avenue underpass is expected to resume shortly.
He noted the town is waiting for a work schedule from the contractor, who is, in turn, waiting for approval from CN.
Brown said that on April 15-16, JTJ Contracting had a second round of geofoundation testing done on the soil anchors, and submitted the information to the town’s consultant, who, in turn, sent a report to CN.
As noted, the contractor is waiting on approval from CN before resuming work.
“We still haven’t gotten the approvals. Once we have the approvals, you should see the contractor back [out] there,” Brown said, adding CN doesn’t have many geotechnical staff, and the one they’ve been working with out of Alberta had an emergency and hasn’t had time to look at the test results from here.
“Hopefully, that gets rolling here in the next little while,” remarked Brown, adding the last leg of construction this summer is not as complex as the past two years and basically will entail widening the road and building the sidewalk on the west side of the underpass.
Another road project—the reconstruction of Scott Street from Reid Avenue to Colonization Road East—is still on hold as the town waits for word on “Connecting Link” funding from the province.
The mayor and council have been in contact with the province, and written letters to Transportation minister Jim Bradley, but have not gotten any response.
The contract for the job tentatively was awarded to Tom Veert Contracting Ltd.
Also at last night’s meeting, council:
•approved a break-open ticket licence application from Rainycrest Auxiliary at 364 Foodstore from June 1-Nov. 30, 2009;
•received notice of the Fort Frances Power Corp.’s annual meeting scheduled for Wednesday, June 8 at 7 p.m. at La Place Rendez-Vous, and appointed Couns. Andrew Hallikas and Paul Ryan to the board of directors’ selection review committee;
•referred a request from Marie and Lynwood Anderson regarding keeping deer fencing in front of their 920 Sixth St. E. home to the Planning and Development executive committee for its recommendation;
•referred a request from Marie and Lynwood Anderson regarding the possibility of leasing a lot behind their home on 920 Sixth St. E. to the Planning and Development executive committee for its recommendation;
•referred a request from local resident L. Oster that the town build a sun shelter built at the park on Colonization Road West and Biddeson Avenue to the Operations and Facilities executive committee for its recommendation;
•referred a request from the City of Cornwall and Township of Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls to the Administration and Finance executive committee for its recommendation (the request is for support of their resolutions asking the provincial government to abandon its plans for the Harmonized Sales Tax and consult with taxpayers through a referendum or by campaigning on a platform of raising taxes before introducing any tax increase);
•passed a bylaw to authorize amendments to a joint use agreement with the Rainy River District School Board and Confederation College to provide for the operation and maintenance of an auditorium facility as part of a multi-use facility;
•passed a bylaw to amend Bylaw 47/07 to authorize the delivery of marriage solemnization services through the office of the clerk (this will allow for civil marriages after hours and on weekends);
•passed a pair of bylaws to authorize licence agreements for the purposes of utilization of the town’s geospatial data with both Union Gas Ltd. and Rainy River District OPP;
•passed a bylaw to authorize entering into a renewal agreement with Corey and Natalie Cousineau and Andrew and Laureen Peters, in partnership with Outlast Laser Sports, with respect to use of certain town lands;
•passed a bylaw to assume aboveground and underground municipal services fronting 1022 Patcin Ave. being part of a street on Plan 48M-368, and to assume certain lands and establish highways; and
•passed a bylaw to approve a contract with Tom Jones Corp. for certain components of Phase II of the Heritage Tourism Project (in a recorded vote, Couns. Andrew Hallikas, Ken Perry, Paul Ryan, and Rick Wiedenhoeft voted in favour of it while Coun. John Albanese and Mayor Roy Avis voted against it).
