(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Town politics

Shellbrook council address traffic and sewer concerns

Jan 19, 2022 | 8:00 AM

Issues related to bad drivers, unsightly yards and vehicles parked in snow route zones, has prompted Shellbrook town council to review options related to bylaw enforcement.

A number of different providers have been tried in the past, but as Mayor Amund Otterson told paNOW, nothing has worked out.

“Part of it was the cost and also not getting the results we were hoping for,” he said.

Otterson explained one of the more pressing issues is people making illegal left hand turns on main street. Essentially what is happening is people going south will just see a parking spot on the east side of the street and will just cross the painted center line.

“It may work out but if somebody else happens to be backing out at the same time from the adjacent parking spot, they are not looking for somebody coming from the wrong direction,” Otterson said. “We have had a few accidents and a few near misses as a result of that.”

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No formal plan has been finalized and the issue may be included in this year’s budget, which won’t be finalized until late spring.

One of the big budget items on this week’s council agenda was sewer line maintenance.

Council was asked to consider transferring over $116,000 from reserves to cover the cost of doing some underground camera work of the town’s entire system, as well as relining three blocks of a specific line. The money for the work comes from the Municipal Economic Enhancement Fund and Gas Tax funds.

Explaining that the town is currently exploring the idea of doing long-term borrowing to fix up all the town’s sewer lines in one shot, Otterson said over a number of years, the town has opted to pick the weakest sewer line block. The technology they use essentially helps create a pipe inside a pipe. The cost per year is between $200,000 and $250,000.

With the total job costing upwards of $1.3 million, Otterson said they may save money in the long term on labour costs, as companies are coming back year after year. Overall material costs also tend to increase not decrease.

“We do have some money in reserves so we would not have to borrow for the whole thing,” Otterson said.

As a result of COVID protocols and the need to try and keep everyone socially distanced, only Otterson, one other councillor, and the chief administrative officer were physically in attendance during Monday’s meeting. The others appeared remotely.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell