The Village of Burns Lake needs to repair its aging infrastructure – even if it means borrowing heavily to do so.
That’s the position of two village councillors who voted in favour of a contentious Aug. 11 motion to borrow $1.9 million and raise taxes by more than nine per cent for the purpose of repairing one village street and a two-block portion of another.
“It is important to address our infrastructure deficit, especially for such main roads like the road to the hospital,” said Councillor John Illes in an interview last weekend.
“For me, there is a sense of urgency needed to address this issue. It takes time for the municipality to borrow money, from taxpayer agreement, to the RDBN board agreement, to agreement with Municipal Finance Authority. We also need to make sure the engineering is done to be ready for the project. This step forward was also discussed at previous meetings, and the municipal strategic planning session. At those times, both Councillor Beach and (councillor) Schienbein were supportive.”
Illes’ colleague on council, Kelly Holliday, shares his sentiments. Holliday, who also voted in favour of the motion, says the streets in question – 8th Ave. and Center – are in desperate need of repair.
“We’re at the point where if we don’t start doing something with our roads pretty soon, we’re never going to do anything with our roads,” Holliday said at the Aug. 11 meeting. “If we just rely on grants and we don’t get them, then we’ll never do anything. So, I think that if we had to do this, and we promised it to our taxpayers that we will do this portion of the road, if it meant a 12-per-cent tax increase, then that’s the way it has to be.
“With our small tax base, it is very difficult to allocate large amounts of funds to infrastructure reserves,” Holliday added in a subsequent interview. “It would take years upon years to save money to pave any one of the avenues in the village. Just as in every other community, taxpayers are impacted when infrastructure replacement projects are implemented. Burns Lake is no exception.”
Though Mayor Luke Strimbold’s vote wasn’t needed to decide the issue, he said last week supports council’s decision. Both he and Holliday stressed that if borrowing is necessary to repair 8th Ave. and Center St., council will do everything possible to minimize the impact on taxpayers.
“Over the last several years, council has made adjustments to our budget to allocate more money to infrastructure,” Strimbold stressed. “We have reviewed operating costs, including staff costs, and made adjustments to ensure we are allocating additional resources to infrastructure. We have a small tax base, so this will have an impact on the taxpayers, but we have to start replacing infrastructure now. The municipality has over 40 km of municipal roads, so we need to start making progress on fixing these roads.”
Strimbold indicated he also feels that investing nearly $1 million from Burns Lake Community Forest Ltd. made sense.
“Council had the option of borrowing $2 million, using the Comfor funds, or $3 million, not using the Comfor funds,” he noted. “The amount we borrow has a significant impact on our debt payments, which will directly impact tax rates. Eighth Ave. is a main street in our community used by a number of residents to access their homes, but it also benefits all residents of the Lakes District that access health care services and the WKE School. With future projects and tax rates on top of mind, council concluded that the Comfor funds be allocated to this project.”
Earlier this spring, the municipality applied to the federal government’s Strategic Priorities Fund for $2.833 million to undertake Phase 1 of the 8th Ave./Center St. corridor project. If that grant is approved, borrowing for the first portion of the project won’t be necessary.
It might be mid-September before the village learns the fate of its application.
