A6

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

Speak Up

If you blinked you might have missed it Thursday night as city council did an about face on the issue of Route 117.

Enlarge Photo

In the early minutes of the regular council meeting held Aug. 28, after council voted to accept the report from an Infrastructure and Capital Works Committee on Aug. 11, Coun. Rupert Bernard made the following motion:

"That the city of Miramichi communicate to the minister of transportation our desire to continue with the Designated Highway Grant Program for Route 117 and review costing details for the remainder of the project with him."

It was seconded by Coun. Brian King.

After weeks of discussion on the subject and councillors originally voting to opt out of the program, Bernard's recommendation passed Thursday night without comment or a single vote against.

The grant program provides infrastructure funding to fix provincially owned highways that cut through municipalities in the province. Route 117 is just such a highway, snaking down University Avenue and onto Wellington Street.

The money comes with a catch, however, as once the agreed upon money is spent, the province turns over ownership of the highway to the city. The "grant" in the program title means just that — the province grants the municipality a highway.

This means at some point, when the money is spent, the city will own the highway. It will become just another city street Miramichi taxpayers will be responsible for fixing, maintaining and snow plowing.

Right now the province is responsible for that or they provide money to the city to do the work. In the case of Route 117 the city received $65,000 a year to do maintenance work and snow removal on the 12.5 kilometre stretch of provincial highway.

When the city takes over the road, that money will disappear.

A few weeks ago the city engineer warned council to take a closer look at the program and at the option of opting out and leaving ownership of the road in the province. He warned that the city could be looking at additional costs added to their budget for road work and mantainence on the road once they take over. It was a thought that made councillors vote to opt out.

So what changed? Well the council, provincial officials and local MLAs John Foran and Bill Fraser met Tuesday to discuss the details of the program and that apparenlty calmed the nerves of councillors who wanted to opt out. Once councillors were satisfied with the answers they received, they agreed to remain in the program.

While that's all well and good but nobody around the council table Thursday night, not Coun. Bernard who made the motion, nor Coun. King who seconded it or even Mayor Gerry Cormier himself, bothered to explain to those watching on TV or to the media who reports to the public, what happened.

Nobody explained that there was a meeting nor did a single councillor say why they changed their minds. There was no debate or discussion.

Silence on the subject.

It may seem at times we are picking on the new city council. It is certainly not our intention nor do we want to be constantly harping at them. But we believe our current councillors need to understand that democracy does not end on election day. The taxpayers of the city elected them and it is there money council is spending.

We do not believe it is too much to ask that council take a few minutes to address the citizens of Miramichi and explain themselves when major decisions are made. In fact, it's the least they can do.