By Thia James

Council delays decision on 6th Ave. East median

May 28, 2013 | 6:25 AM

At Mayor Greg Dionne’s suggestion, Prince Albert city council voted to hold off on deciding the fate of the median at Sixth Avenue East and 15th Street East.

The median sits between businesses just adjacent to Cornerstone, the growing commercial hub in the city’s east end. While a couple of business owners – namely the owners of Dairy Queen and Accra Lock – had called for a partial or full removal of the concrete median, one yet-to-be-named proprietor voiced their opposition to such a plan.

During Monday’s council meeting, the mayor told council the correspondence from this business owner would be forthcoming, and moved to postpone the decision for two weeks, to which council agreed.

“I believe that we should ask our communications department to communicate with all businesses on that street,” Dionne said. The business owner who wrote the mayor with his objection to the median’s removal wanted to know why “he didn’t have the right to come to council and speak.”

Dionne said he thinks this is a valid argument. “I’ve heard other members speak at council that it would benefit all the businesses on that street, and so I think what we should do serve them notice that we’re going to deal with this in two weeks and if they have any concerns, they’re to appear at council or to send us a letter.”

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He went on to say the debate about the median has become a “controversial” item.

As council agreed to put the decision on hold for two weeks, they will also be awaiting an updated report from administration delving further into a number of issues with the previous two reports, namely the cost of removing the median.

In the initial report filed to council by operations co-ordinator Nykol Miller two weeks ago, the cost was pegged at $23,000. But on Monday, Coun. Martin Ring pointed to a lack of clarity that has since arisen about the cost.

“Can we please just firm up the financial implications? Because I’m getting quite confused. I’ve got one report that says it would be approximately $23,000, and then all of a sudden we’ve got an updated report and it’s showing $72,000. And I would really like to have this cleared up as to what … the realistic price is for us to remove it because I’m having a tough time justifying an increase of $50,000.”

As well, how the removal of the median would be funded is something that concerned Coun. Tim Scharkowski. He asked where the funding for this would come from because the work hadn’t been budgeted for – and it’s something the report from administration about the median will too investigate.

But the report will look at more than just removing the median; alternatives to a complete removal will also be one the table during this time.

Sixth Avenue Dairy Queen owner Trent Kachur, who wrote a letter to council earlier this year asking for a partial or complete removal of the median, proposed an alternate idea.

“To the removal of the median – after maybe… some thought about it, I still like the idea, I’d also like the idea of a turning cut-out. And I mean a turning cut-out in the median where people can access our business safely kind of similar [to] what they have up on Sixth Avenue East. Northbound traffic by Carlton, where people can enter that turning cut-out into Carlton Court Plaza.”

And it’s an idea that Dionne said he liked. After the meeting, he re-iterated his opposition to the median’s removal, but said a cut-out would not jeopardize the safety of the public.

“If that happens, it solves my safety concerns.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames