Second Line West resurfacing will be done in instalments (6 City Council briefs)

City Council agreed this week to proceed with resurfacing Second Line West between Korah Road and Allen’s Side Road, but the work is unlikely to be finished all at once.

Councillors agreed to allocate $400,000 in new provincial funding announced Dec. 7 to the project.

But Carl Rumiel, the city's manager of design and transportation engineering, said the work will be done in "phases."

"I would think it would be phased probably, at least in two sections," Rumiel told Monday night's City Council meeting.

"One would be between Korah Road and Goulais. The other would be between Goulais and Allen's Side Road," he said.

About the $400,000 in new provincial cash, Rumiel said: "I think it's a multi-year fund. So we may get some more next year so we can resurface it in separate phases."

"Our view is that it will assist us in resurfacing this portion. It won't pay for the whole thing but it will go a long way toward making the project much more cost-effective for us."

"We can use that money to displace...We can use it on other resurfacing projects."

Other oddments from Monday's City Council meeting:

• councillors voted unanimously to urge Sault MPP Ross Romano and other provincial politicians to expand capacity at Northern Ontario School of Medicine, adding more physician and residency positions and more clinical teaching. Romano told SooToday that any expansion of capacity at the medical school would have to be approved by Christine Elliott, the province's health minister
• $6,200 was given to Beaver Freezer Marathon, an adventure race planned by two-time Canadian champion Lawrence Foster. The event, on Mar. 6, 2022, is expected to attract as many as 300 competitors, 50 to 100 of whom would come from out of town. Participants will ski, fat bike or run on 42 kilometres of frozen lakes, streams, trails and portages, starting and ending at Hiawatha Highlands
• councillors took no action on a report from planning director Don McConnell about options for offsetting the cost of new development. Sault Ste. Marie is one of a very small number of municipalities with greater than 50,000 population that don't impose development charges. Ward 3 Coun. Matthew Shoemaker served notice that any effort to introduce development charges in the Sault would "be met with stiff resistance on my part" 
• the mayor declared January to be Crime Stoppers month, recognizing almost 4,500 arrests, $8 million worth of drugs seized and $4 million in recovered property during the 37 years it has operated in Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma District. This year's theme is: “Stop the Crime of Human Trafficking”
• Ward 5 Coun. Matthew Scott re-announced winners of the 2021 City of Sault Ste. Marie Christmas Lighting Awards, whose names everybody already knew because they'd actually been made public on Dec. 17 but were prevented from accepting their awards in person, either by the unmerry COVID grinch or by Premier Doug Ford, depending on who you choose to blame for the current state of affairs. Scott served on the judging committee along with Ward 5 Coun. Corey Gardi, Ward 1's Sandra Hollingsworth, Ward 2's Lisa Vezeau-Allen and other community-minded volunteers. "The week of Dec. 20, committee members drove in their own vehicles to judge and review nominations," Scott said. In November, City Council agreed to slash the number of councillors serving as lighting award judges to just one starting in 2022. "I always enjoyed getting to do this every year," Scott told Monday's City Council meeting. "It gives you a chance to drive and check out the city and areas that you don't usually experience. A lot of streets I didn't realize existed or streets that I've never actually been down."