Petrolia’s mayor says it may be the perfect time to rebuild Greenfield Street.
Brad Loosley made the comments Monday as council discussed the reconstruction of Wingfield Street during a video conference.
Councillors awarded the contract for the job to Cope Construction. The project includes fixing the water and sewer services and rebuilding the road which runs parallel to Greenfield. The town had expected the work to cost about $1.24 million; Cope’s bid came in at $944,911. Even with factoring in about $150,000 in engineering and project management costs, that puts the project about $150,000 under budget.
CAO and Treasurer, Rick Charlebois says any surplus funding will go into the town’s working capital reserves for other projects..
Loosley believes that could be Greenfield Street. It’s been up for discussion for years. The street was part of a $5 million plan submitted to the province last year which would have seen all the streets in the theatre district renewed. It didn’t receive funding.
Loosley believes the time is right to work on Greenfield. “With no theatre going on right now, it would certainly be ideal…it would be the ideal time to get into a mess and not to affect the theatre.
But the mayor says he’d only be in favour of getting started if contractors would wait until 2021 to be paid, since the cash for the project isn’t in this year’s budget.
Councillor Ross O’Hara wasn’t as keen on the idea. “There are so many unknowns right now…I wouldn’t want to commit to anything until we know what else comes down the road,” he says.
Councillors asked for a report on the idea. Councillor Joel Field suggested it might be best to only move ahead on the engineering work so the project would be ready should the federal and provincial government start an infrastructure program to kick start the economy.