Infrastructure

 

In South Marysburgh, we have a unique arrangement for managing all County-owned buildings – Town Hall, the Fairgrounds and Shed as well as Mount Tabor. 

 

The South Marysburgh Recreation Board and its Management Committee are responsible for these properties and their work has become a model the rest of the County might well follow. I will endeavor to ensure this continues.
 

ROADS

 

Another important aspect of infrastructure is our roads. Everyone knows the appalling condition of many of our roads. County Road 13 through South Bay and Royal Road from County Road 10 to Brewers Road being prime examples.

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Since 2019, we have seen the resurfacing of 2 sections of County Road 13, County Road 10 from Milford to Mariners, Old Milford Road, Kingsley Road all the way up to Picton as well as part of County Road 17. Improvements have also been made to the gravel road maintenance program.
 

Is there more to do? Of course! Some of the roads used by WPD when they were building the industrial wind turbines are still in need of repair and the process of negotiation between WPD and the province has been slow. However, we are now at the point where an agreement for compensation to the County is with Ministers at Queen’s Park to approve. Once that is complete, then the repairs will get done.
 

I have a great working relationship with Adam Goheen, the County's Director of Operations who is responsible for road maintenance. With his help, I wrote a primer about road reconstruction and maintenance techniques which was circulated with my daily email recently. If you want a copy, just drop me a line.

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Thoughts Re: Cost

 

Road repair and replacement remains the biggest pain point for many people in the County and this simply comes down to money. How much more do you want to pay to speed up the improvement of our roads? I have proposed, without success so far, that we usedebt to finance double surface treated road projects. The cost of double surface treated roads such as we did 2 years ago on CR13 from Whattams to Gravelly Bay and this year on Old Milford Rd. from McKinley cross rd. to Miller is about $95,000 per kilometer and we do this with cash even though the road should last 10 years before it needs to be done again. We do 9 times more such roadwork for the same amount of tax dollars if we financed these projects with 10 year debt.

 

As your councillor, I would welcome any suggestions or ideas you may have regarding South Marysburgh’s share of infrastructure spending.

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