Fort Frances Town Council has decided to withdraw a provincial funding application for the engineering phase of the proposed Central Avenue roundabout after prolonged debate over the deteriorating intersection’s fate caused it to miss a key grant deadline.
Since the work could not be completed by the deadline on a provincial grant, council agreed during Monday evening’s meeting to withdraw its bid for the funding. When a new council revisits the topic after this October’s municipal elections, the cost of the engineering redesign could now fall entirely on local taxpayers, according to Infrastructure and Growth Manager Travis Rob.
“It’s got to go back to the funding agency now, and the funding agency has to agree to again give us the money if they so choose to do so,” Rob told The Times.
On May 11, council voted in favour of building a roundabout at the location. However, it later voted against a motion to award a design contract to KGS Group of Winnipeg, the only engineering firm to place a bid on the work. The main objection was that the KGS bid came in $10,648, or about 5.3 per cent, above the town’s $200,000 budget.
This puts the town’s administration in a bind. On one hand, it has a directive to proceed with the construction of a roundabout at Kings Highway (Highway 11/71) and Central Avenue, but at the same time has been told not to award the design contract that would get the wheels turning on the project.
“At the end of the day, they could come to our application and say, ‘Well, we gave you this money last year, and you couldn’t get it done, what is the chance you’re going to get it now?’,” Rob said. “There is only so much money to go around, and they don’t fund every project. We’ve been denied in the past, so the risk is there that they do overstep us for a project in some other community.”
Connecting Links, the provincial agency to which the town applied for the funds, was set to cover 90 per cent of the design fee before the application was withdrawn.
“Funding obligation says you have this funding, but you have to do all of these things, and one of them is to complete your work within this timing window,” Rob said. “Because we can’t meet that obligation, we now have to go and take the action of saying we can’t fulfil it.”
If the directive to build a roundabout goes unchanged with a new mayor and council and Connecting Links denies the next application, the entire financial burden of the engineering part would instead weigh on Fort Frances taxpayers.
The current traffic signal light controller is also on its last legs and cannot be repaired since the parts are no longer in circulation. If it dies before reconstruction happens, the intersection will be reduced to a four-way stop.
“Remember Armit Avenue when it was a four-way stop last week? That’s where we’re headed,” Rob said.
Coun. Bill Morrison Jr., who joined other councillors who opposed both the roundabout and awarding the engineering tender, said he’d now like to see a report detailing the costs of alternative designs for the next council.
“I thought it was a good time to look at other options, especially with another council coming,” Morrison said. “Maybe we have some other options, show what it would cost—just a brief thing of how much eight lights with the wiring costs. Basically, just to give options.”
The withdrawal of the application leaves the entire roundabout plan in a state of limbo until the next council is elected and able to vote on the topic.
“Now we have to wait until the next council,” said CAO Marcel Michaels. “It starts a kind of clean slate, and then they’ll get a motion on the floor. Four people want it? Sweet. Four people don’t want it? Sweet. Then it’ll be decided.”
