Some King City road repairs fall by the wayside

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 9, 2014
By Tim Kelly

The good news for residents of King City’s Collard Drive, Scott Crescent and Winter Road is that township staff heard loud and clear Monday night you’re not happy with the state of your pavement.

The bad news is, nothing will be done about it this fall.

Like flowers and the Toronto Blue Jays, you’ll just have to wait until next spring to have the bumps and potholes repaired.

King City Ward 5 Councillor Debbie Schaeffer, who is running against two opponents in the Oct. 27 municipal election, was clearly unhappy that work isn’t being done on the three residential streets in her ward.

The councillor addressed her displeasure to Mike Cole, who is sitting in for the departed director of engineering and public works, Rob Flindall.

She’s also displeased that residents who live on Collard, Scott and Winter are under the impression the work is happening “soon”.

“I have been told by residents that they have phoned in (to the township office) in the last few weeks and asked what’s the status of this project. They’ve been told it’s coming soon.

“I agree in the scope of capital projects, something happening in the next six months might be considered soon, but to the layperson on Collard, that is very bumpy, soon does not mean next spring. So, we really have not been clear about what’s happening,” said an exasperated Schaeffer.

She added she was surprised to see a report about emergency repairs being made on the 10th Concession.

“Repairs on Collard, Scott and Winter have fallen way behind and the RFP (Request for Proposals) is not even out. This is very disappointing and very shocking to me, so I have two issues with this situation: first of all, the fact that it has fallen behind and, second of all, that it is only identified at this very late stage.

“I can’t understand how the ball could have been dropped so severely. For a project that was identified in June, now it comes out on Oct. 6, and the RFP isn’t even out, that is really a problem for me because, to my mind, it’s that kind of lack of performance by the municipality that gives fodder to people who say their property taxes are being wasted and why should they pay these huge taxes? It’s hurtful for me to be in this position because I have been one of the councillors who has been very aggressive when it comes to property taxes,” said Schaefer.

Stepping into the breech to take the brunt of the blame for staff was chief administrative officer Susan Plamondon, who said Cole was not to blame for the problem.

Plamondon offered a mea culpa for the lack of communication to residents of Collard, Scott and Winter and to council.

“The communication piece is something we can, could and should have done a much better job of in terms of letting the community know if there were to be delays and certainly letting council know. For that, I apologize to this council and to the community because it would have been important to let people know. The community had an expectation that they would see some progress this year, so for that I apologize and we’ll do a better job,” said Plamondon.

She went on to promise that the funding was in place for the three roads and that work would go ahead as soon as possible in the spring.

“I do want to reassure the community those projects will move forward and they will be able to be looked after as soon as possible in the spring. And we will endeavor to develop a communications strategy for those communities and those projects and the timeliness of them,” said Plamondon.