South Frontenac Council

Jeff Green | Mar 12, 2014

Winter maintenance costs are up in South Frontenac

Public Works Manager Mark Segsworth delivered two short reports about the winter work done by the roads department this year to a Committee of the Whole meeting of South Frontenac Council on Tuesday night, March 11.

The first dealt with the outcome of a change in road maintenance contractors that the township undertook late last fall. Segsworth said, “There was a bit of a learning curve with the new contractor, R. Mulrooney Trucking Ltd. at the beginning, but for the most part things have been sorted out and things have gone well.”

Segsworth added that this might have been a difficult winter to make a change in the system, pointing out that as of the end of February there had been 65 winter “events” that required a road crew, either from the township, contractors, or both, to plow and/or or sand township roads.

Costs up – In the first two moths of 2014, sand/salt purchases have cost the township $210,000 as compared to $106,000 in 2013. Plowing costs on a sample arterial route were $52,000 as compared to $12,000 last year, and on a sample local route they were $26,000 as compared to $9,000.

Road maintenance is budgeted on a five-year average and overages are put in a reserve to cover for more expensive years such as this one. Pointing out that the winter maintenance budget is based on the entire year, Segsworth did a little weather prognosticating to soften the potential blow to the budget.

“It looks like winter will continue well into March but it could be mild next November and December,” he said in his report.

Sydenham water rate change to be passed at next meeting

After hearing from the public in February, the township is ready to bring in increased water rates for residents of Sydenham, which was supported by the entire Council. More controversial are penalties on top of the minimum water charges, for the 30% or so households in Sydenham who have not hooked up to the system.

“I don’t support the penalties. If we want to put pressure on people we should force hook-ups when properties change hands,” said Councilor Allan McPhail.

“We had to do something,” said Mayor Davision, "and some properties never change hands.”

“We needed to find some way to encourage hook-ups. There are hundreds who haven’t,” said Deputy Mayor Ron Vandewal.

“I don’t think this is appropriate and I will vote against it,” said McPhail.

“I think we have the votes we need and we will bring this to Council next week for a vote,” said Davison.

Public works managers group update

At a meeting on January 14, the public works and waste managers and waste management supervisors from South, Central and North Frontenac met in Sharbot Lake and crept closer to creating a collaborative approach to delivering waste management consulting services across their jurisdictions. The combined cost of consulting costs across the county is $483,000 per year, and within a year the plan is to either enter into a single contract for consulting or hire an engineer and hydro-geologists and bring the service in house.

The other major effort of the group is to create a virtual joint 185 kilometre arterial road corridor that includes Roads 506 and 509, Road 38 and Roads 95 and 96 on Frontenac Islands and to look at it as one continuous road that needs to be maintained on a continual schedule. In a needs study, it was determined that 34 kilometres need to be rebuilt over the next 10 years, at a cost of approximately $6 million. A final report will come later in the year, with a proposal for a long-term plan to deal with the entire network on a regional basis. The public works managers hope to be able to bring provincial attention to these roads in a way that has never been possible working as individual departments.

Mark Segsworth said the ongoing relationship between the public works and waste management supervisors continues to be extremely positive.