With Canadians everywhere are still reeling from the Humboldt Broncos tragedy, Thompson City council took some time at their April 9 regular meeting to remember the 16 people who lost their lives in a devastating bus crash near Tisdale, Sask.
Outside of observing a moment of silence for the affected members of this junior hockey team, Mayor Dennis Fenske also said that all Thompson city flags will fly at half mast until April 23 in tribute to the victims, the survivors and their families.
“This is truly a horrific accident that very easily could happen on any highway in Canada, whether it be a band trip or a hockey trip,” said Fenske. “We are all touched in Canada with this tragedy. We are all touched in Thompson because of our location and the amount of highway travel that we do.”
The issue of highway safety carried over into the “correspondence” part of the meeting as well.
Here, Fenske read a letter from federal Minister of Transport Marc Garneau, who acknowledged the city’s concerns about the increased presence of heavy-duty vehicles on Highway 6 ever since OmniTRAX has been reducing their rail service to Northern Manitoba.
In the wake of the Humboldt Broncos tragedy, several councillors underlined the importance of pursuing these highway safety talks with different branches of government and representatives from the trucking industry.
“Over the course of the winter without OmniTRAX we’ve had a minimum of 120 to 150 extra trucks on our highways,” said Coun. Colleen Smook. “And if we stop and think that we’ve put 28 buses of student athletes through on the same highways … I guess we could say we’re very lucky.”
Manitoba Winter Games update
Fenske also read a letter from former mayor Tim Johnston, who disclosed some figures relating to the 2018 Manitoba Winter Games that were held in Thompson March 4−10.
Overall, Johnston revealed that these games attracted 1,400 participants, 13 independent sports organizations, over 12,000 spectators and raised $328,000 through the host society and various “friends of the games.”
On the subject of finances, Coun. Duncan Wong asked if the city will be facing a deficit or a surplus in the wake of this expensive seven-day event, and what is to be done if there is a significant amount of money left over.
Fenske replied by saying that the host society will submit a full financial report to the council at a later date, but remains confident that they will not have to contend with a deficit.
“The host society will be handling the disposition of the capital surplus,” said Fenske, answering Wong’s second question. “There was a memo sent to all local sport organizations … asking for additional wish lists and the host society will review that and allocate the additional funds.”
Expensive water main break
The most contentious issue from the April 9 meeting stemmed from a pair of resolutions that forced the city to pay $57,215.74 for a water main repair.
According to a memo prepared by director of development services Anthony McInnis, the staff of the Water X Industrial Services building on Station Road conducted repairs Nov. 16−20 on what they thought was a leak in their service line. However, after several days of work, the staff of Water X determined that the leak was coming from the city’s new water main, which means it is the city’s responsibility to fix it.
Because of this unexpected development, the city was stuck with paying Water X $23,931.80 for their work and had to cough up an additional $33,283.94 to hire another contractor, Eric’s Plumbing and Heating Ltd, to finish the job.
Councillors Wong and Ron Matechuk were the biggest opponents of paying this combined bill, saying that local citizens shouldn’t sacrifice their tax dollars because of the city’s mishandling of a situation like this.
To avoid this kind of confusion in the future, Wong even suggested that the city should send out letters to all commercial property owners to outline the proper procedure for water main repair.
“If you see that your land [is leaking] water, don’t wait for the city to come and do the job,” said Wong, addressing members of the public directly. “You go ahead and hire the contractor, get them and find out what the problem is. If you find out it’s the main, then you refer back to the city.”
Despite these objections, other councillors maintained that they still have to pay their bills and passed both resolutions with majority support. While councillors Wong, Matechuk and Judy Kolada voted against the first resolution to compensate Water X, the latter two ended up supporting the second resolution to pay Eric’s Plumbing.
The next Thompson council meeting April 23 at 7p.m.
