CITY HALL: Open houses provide referendum information

By Boundary Sentinel

Upcoming presentations will give Grand Forks residents a chance to ask questions about two referendum questions on the election ballot in November allowing council to borrow money to complete infrastructure repairs.

 

Grand Forks has built up $127 million in public infrastructure since incorporating in 1897. As the community has aged, so has the infrastructure with some of the roads built in the 1930’s and pipelines built in the 1940’s. In fact, it’s estimated that only one-third of its life is left.

 

“This loss in value is not uncommon in a community,” explains director of finance Cecile Arnott. “However, we must be prepared to respond before this infrastructure starts failing, once it starts failing the renewal costs and the costs of responding to failures get very expensive.”

 

The city estimates the current backlog of renewal work is about $32 million.

 

Over the past year, an in-depth analysis of the infrastructure’s remaining life was done to weigh the risk of deferring repair against the cost of upgrades. The results show that many of the city’s water, sanitary, storm water and roadway sections have already reached the end of their service lives.

 

“What this means,” says chief administrative officer Lynne Burch, “is that… we need to act now to start renewing this infrastructure. Failing to do so will only increase the cost of repairs, and possibly result in some loss of service levels.”

 

“This isn’t uncommon, much of our infrastructure typically needs to be renewed on a 30 to 40 year cycle, and we are reaching the end of the latest cycle,” Burch adds.

 

To address the funding needs for the anticipated repairs, council introduced two bylaws in July - one that would authorize the borrowing of up to $1.3 million for emergency water supply for fire protection (Bylaw 1922) and another that would authorize upwards of $4.2 million for road, water and sewer capital renewal projects (Bylaw 1923).

 

“Bylaw 1923 is designed to combine road, water and sewer repairs into combined projects to minimize our costs,” explains Mayor Brian Taylor. “Based upon some good science, we are able to combine multiple priorities into more comprehensive multi-utility projects.”

 

These two bylaws form the referendums at the upcoming election on Nov. 19.

To help residents and businesses gain a better understanding of the analytical process and results, city councillors and staff will be delivering presentations to key community groups in early October.

 

If your community group is interested in a presentation can contact Arnott at 250-442-8266.

 

The city will also be holding two open houses on Wednesday, Oct. 26: the first one will be from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at City Hall; and the second one will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Studio B at 7330 - 2nd Street.

 

“We also encourage residents to drop by City Hall for more information and to talk to staff,” suggests Councillor Christine Thompson. “Our goal is to inform our community on the process and information assessed leading up to the bylaw decision, and to capture community feedback.”