Town pushing for remand centre

Fort Frances council has been pushing the buttons to have a remand centre built here and Monday night agreed to put a proposal together for the facility.
The town will put together a request for proposal in search of a consultant to put together a package in their bid for the facility.
The remand centre would be a 28-bed facility built to house prisoners who have yet to be sentenced.
“It’s for prior to your being sentenced. You’re held prior to being sentenced by the court,” explained CAO Bill Naturkach.
The remand centre, according to Mayor Glenn Witherspoon, who met former Correctional Services minister Norm Sterling earlier this year to discuss Fort Frances’ chances, would be built by the town, with the cost of the project to be repaid by the province over several years.
“We would come up with a figure that would represent a payback on our investment,” the mayor remarked. “If we will proceed with that, he would like us to obtain the property from the province, which is behind the courthouse, and he would like us, as a municipality, to built the remand centre.
“We would be repaid in a per-diem manner,” added Mayor Witherspoon.
Councillors, Fort Frances Jail staff, the Rainy River Future Development Corp., and others have been working to convince the province that the town be home to Ontario’s second remand centre after the closure of the jail here in 2004.
“We will attain 27 jobs and the law society will have no trepidation that the jail is going to end,” said Mayor Witherspoon.
In related news, council also received an update Monday from Mayor Witherspoon about a joint proposal with Couchiching First Nation for a young offenders’ facility locally.
“We in Fort Frances put a different spin on it,” he said. “We got very aggressive and made a recommendation with our First Nations for a different type of proposal.”
A proposal for the 50-bed facility will be sent to the Ministry of Correctional Services on Friday–the province’s deadline–after two meetings were held last week in Couchiching and Fort Frances to gauge public support.
“We needed public support and there were very positive meetings at both locations,” said Mayor Witherspoon.
Also during Monday night’s meeting, councillors discussed a sudden increase in the cost of a project to improve Third Street West from Central Avenue to York.
After past road repairs showed signs of needing repair, and an underground river was found under the stretch of Third Street to be fixed, the costs have escalated.
Engineers have suggested an extra 30 mm of asphalt be added among other suggestion, which could increase the project’s cost significantly.
“There are a number of options to be considered and I think we should discuss how we will fund this particular work,” said Coun. Dave Bourgeault.
A special meeting of council was scheduled for noon today to discuss how to fund the project after the Ministry of Transportation could be contacted and asked for additional “connecting link” funding.
Council also considered two requests from residents in Alberton for access to the town’s water supply. It voted to turn down access to private residents but to approach Alberton and suggest that municipality work out a partnership with Fort Frances for its residents to use the water supply here.
Also Monday night, council:
•agreed to write a letter to the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency noting that the town had been promised a CAN-AM speed pass site with the construction of a new Customs facility here;
•declared a parcel of land between Scott Street and First Street East a green space and;
•voted to include a reporting template for the municipal performance measurement program with this fall’s property tax bills.