Mayor John gets in Ted Hallin-Williamson's face

Undaunted by interruptions from a concerned citizen, officials broke ground today for Sault Ste. Marie's new truck route.

Neighbourhood resident Ted Hallin-Williamson (shown at the left of our photo) listened quietly to comments from FedNor Minister Joe Comuzzi.

Then, early in Sault MPP David Orazietti's speech, Hallin-Williamson raised his voice to question Orazietti about safety of area residents during the construction.

Mayor John Rowswell left his seat to answer that question - and approached to approximately one foot from Hallin-Williamson’s face.

"Now Ted, you know we've been over this," Rowswell said. "This is not the time or the place to talk about it."

Dolcetti intervenes

Jerry Dolcetti, the City's commissioner of engineering and planning (shown in yellow shirt), inserted himself between Hallin-Williamson and the mayor, as Orazietti forged on with his comments about the truck route's economic and social benefits.

Hallin-Williamson then retired to a distance away from proceedings to answer questions from the media as the mayor took the podium.

View photo gallery for this story "We had a real problem with three or four hundred trucks going through our downtown and that started the process," said Rowswell. "But today we've actually started an efficient process that will keep those trucks out of the downtown."

"It took many councils, it took citizens of this community participating," the mayor said. "It continues to take the community as a whole to work to do the more right thing for the community."

Joe Fratesi weighs in

City Chief Administrative Officer Joe Fratesi, serving as emcee for the occasion, wrapped up the speeches with a few comments.

"Major renewal of infrastructure in any community obviously brings with it some inconvenience," said Fratesi. "At the end of the day the inconvenience is no doubt well worth it and the community is much better for it."

Ward 4 Councillor Neil DelBianco spoke from the audience to the incident involving Hallin-Williamson.

"I know the people of this ward and they're definitely for the truck route," said DelBianco. "I want to clarify that this is not against the truck route. It's against a detour getting to some residences."

Hallin-Williamson discusses his concerns

Meanwhile, Hallin-Williamson was talking to reporters about his concerns.

"We need an alternate access to this neighbourhood [during construction]. It's been converted to a cul-de-sac," said Hallin-Williamson.

"I spoke with the people on the fire department and they agree that they would prefer to have a direct access to the neighbourhood."

"We had over 250 people sign the petition [for a direct access]" he said. "It was brought to City Council on Monday and we were shuffled off to a meeting on Wednesday and it was understood that it was going to be opened for access by emergency vehicles but we wanted access for the whole neighbourhood."

"We've been stonewalled for the last month on trying to get a safe access to this neighbourhood," said Hallin-Williamson. "I got called by one of the aldermen yesterday saying they were going to wait another week or two until they can fix up the Huron and Queen Street intersection before we can get emergency access into our neighbourhood."

"That's too late. We should have had emergency access right from day one and we shouldn't have these heavy trucks and equipment going through residential areas," he said.

What Jerry Dolcetti says

City Commissioner of Engineering and Planning Dolcetti said that arrangements for more direct access to the neighbourhood are underway.

"The traffic circulation and the emergency vehicles around this community have been addressed in terms of the detour routes," said Dolcetti. "We've spoken to the fire department, the police department as part of the overall plan for circulation of traffic in cases of emergency."

"What we can do is, probably later this week, we can accommodate a more direct route for emergency vehicles as well as local traffic," he said.

"[Hallin-Williamson] has been assured by myself that it would be midweek that we would have an opening through the area that's north of the Transit Facility [on Huron Street]," said Dolcetti.

"It will allow people to get access to a parking lot if they want to access local business establishments as well as local traffic can drive through there but we encourage that all other through traffic follow the detour routing that’s been clearly marked out."