Roads should be priority one

Heather Wright/The Independent

Roads and bridges and how they’re going to get fixed in a time of shrinking grants from the recent Round Table with some of the candidates for Brooke-Alvinston Council.

The Independent sat down with, mayoral candidate Jamie Armstrong, and council candidates Greg Hillyard, Frank Nemcek, Ian Lehrbass, and Diane Mac Dougall Sept. 30. Candidates Don McCabe, Marcus Deloughery, Jenny Redick, and Craig Sanders were not available.

There are three roads in Brooke-Alvinston, Petrolia Line, Rokeby Line and Lasalle Line, which are crumbling. Lasalle has been returned to gravel in some spots. That drew a host of concerns from neighbours who say the dust on the road is so thick, it’s dangerous.

Petrolia Line has been patched and repatched. The current council recently gave the green light to pulverize what is still there to make it safer.

Armstrong says something has to be done. “We need to try to be a lot more proactive when it comes to repairing the roads,” he said. “We’re going to have to do some temporary fixing on the roads, but I think it’s more – we need to be proactive to get prepared for grants because we’re not going to be able to pay for these roads ourselves.”

Mac Dougall agreed. “We need to go down every avenue possible, like working with your MPs and MPPs to make sure that there’s no money out there that’s not going to be left.”

Hillyard says that may not be a magic fix. “Infrastructure, roads, bridges, those are the core services that we provide. If we can’t do that, we need to find the money somewhere else, and it doesn’t necessarily mean going to the taxpayer, and it doesn’t necessarily mean going to the feds.

“I’m sure there’s fat that could be trimmed. It might mean making some difficult decisions as far as cuts in other areas,” he said, adding tax increases might be necessary to maintain core, essential services. But he says that can only happen when all other avenues have been exhausted.”

Lehrbass agreed roads need priority. “We need to do a good job of setting our priorities and work so that everything’s in place. If there’s an opportunity comes along, we’re ready to go,” he said.

And Lehrbass says it is not the end of the world if some of those roads are gravel “As far as a gravel road compared to a paved road, if it’s a good gravel road, I could care less if it’s paved.”

That’s a song book, Nemcek has been singing from for a number of years. He believes turning roads back to gravel is not a bad idea particularly on the roads farm machinery uses daily. “Nowadays, the equipment’s got so big, there’s so much tracking, and these roads …there’s no base underneath them, eh? So all these big combines, these big waggons, big is busting them all to pieces.”

Nemcek doesn’t want to raise taxes to improve the roads saying meetings with MPP Steve Pinsonneault have gone well and grants are a possibility. “But you got to remember, there’s a lot of people got their fingers in the pie trying to get that grant money, and it’s hard to get.”

You can hear the entire conversation here; but a caution, we used an iPhone for recording and some portions may be difficult to hear.