Use of Extra Dollars Highlighted at Council

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 03:50 AM

Prince George, B.C. – The Development Services Department has presented an update to Prince George City Council on how some of the extra dollars approved during the budget process for 2008 are being used.

General Manager of Development Services, Bob Radloff, says there were three items which were given larger budgets:

Boulevard enhancement
Trails
Pothole Patching.

Here are the highlights of each:

Boulevard Enhancement :

There are two types of landscapes, soft (turf shown at right), and hard (cement, interlocking brick etc)

For the soft boulevards, methods being used include, aerating, over seeding and frequent mowing to choke out weeds. The extra dollars have also allowed there to be an extra crew of a mower and labourer that can work weekends.

For the hard landscapes, steam , vinegar, borax are all being tried to see which would be most effective in dealing with weeds.

Trails:

An extra $34 thousand dollars to this budget is being used for trail maintenance throughout the City’s trail network.

At this point, the only accessible area of Cottonwood Island Park remains on the south side of the channels. While Councilor Don Zurowski says it is a shame to lose the season, staff explained that Cottonwood Island Park remains in "recovery " from theflood damage of the ice jams, and repairs won't be made to much of the Park until the flood mitigation details have been set.

Pothole Patching:

An extra $170 thousand dollars approved in the 2008 budget allowed for the addition of another 2 person crew. With that additional money, the City will be spending $435 thousand a year on pothole repairs.

Major work already done includes, Ospika between 22nd and Ferry. That should keep the repaired section another five year life span. The section of Ospika in front of the CN Centre will be redone again next year, and that will be done on warranty as the initial work didn't live up to expectations.

( at right, typical full size patch crew)

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Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 03:50 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: lostfaith on June 24 2008 8:04 AM

Pothole patching?

Don't forget almost every other road in town.

Posted by: 80shovel on June 24 2008 8:32 AM

Lets just get our streets in order.......hell I'm always way too busy keepin my eyes pealed straight ahead for pot holes....don't dare gawk round to see how pretty the boulevards are lookin.

Posted by: singlemom on June 24 2008 8:57 AM

I would have thought that such a large paving job would have been covered by some sort of warranty anyway - wouldn't it have been just common sense to negotiate something like that in advance? There are a lot of decisions made without looking at the big picture ahead and considering sustainability, resulting in the waste of our ever increasing tax dollars.
Maybe I'm missing something...

Posted by: Bridge on June 24 2008 10:42 AM

You couldnt help but see the performance on Ospika repairing the pot holes from the last paving job that was done three years ago. To repair the pot holes at the seams they ground out a six foot wide section anywhere from 10 to 50 fet long and filled it with hot mix ashpalt.

There were about nine pieces of equiment and people falling over each other trying to lay the new ashpalt. It was a scene right out of a Dysney comic strip.

And after this performance there are still pot holes that were not filled. Oh well we have a 4% levy maybe we can do it next year.

Cheers

Cheers

Posted by: Eagleone on June 25 2008 2:00 AM

YRB does a good job on their pot hole repairs. Maybe YRB could hold a clinic for the city workers?