The Town of Athabasca has agreed to fund their share of a road extension and services to the new Edwin Parr Composite School.
The Town of Athabasca has agreed to fund their share of a road extension and services to the new Edwin Parr Composite School.
Councillors came to the agreement at a special meeting held between the municipality and members of the Aspen View Public School Division's board the evening of Oct. 25.
The town called the special meeting after councillors failed to come to an agreement at the Oct. 18 council meeting, instead, opting to meet with the school division to express their concerns.
“As you can see, we are once again divided, ” said Coun. Tanu Evans, who voted against a motion to approve funding at the Oct. 18 meeting. “While some of our stances currently can be seen as obstacles in the path of your project, I want to assure everyone that's not my motive. ”
He added that he wanted to explore all options, including those that would reduce the infrastructure cost, before moving ahead.
“At our last meeting I put forward an idea to work with Aspen View to eliminate the second entrance and find an alternate way of routing the busses to their designated drop off point. ” Evans said. “This could shave an estimated $82,000 off of the project costs, although I estimate that at around $100,000. ”
Aspen View superintendent Mark Francis noted that making that kind of adjustment, where a bus would need to drive through a parking lot, would not be so simple.
First, there would need to be a redesign for the plan, which was previously approved by the town's Municipal Planning Commission. Then, it would need to be re-approved by a number of governing bodies, including the Alberta Education capital planning division, infrastructure division, and possibly Alberta Transportation.
Francis said that according to the project manager, this could amount to a seven-month project delay, costing an extra $100,000 a month that the school division and its partners could be on the hook for. There were also contractual and legal implications that could come into play with a change work order.
Francis also suggested that there could be a safety issue.
“The design that the town approved is based on the premise that again - because this is what Alberta Infrastructure and Education want - is that you separate busses from parking lots, ” Francis said. “When you're routing students through there, or what you're running busses through, is a student parking lot. We would be driving 16 busses in the afternoon and 30 busses in the morning through a parking lot that people are coming in. ”
Evans retorted, saying that all he heard was that the change would cost Aspen View more money.
“We have projects in town all the time that we modify, ” he said. “We lopped off the last two sections of the (49 Street) sewer project because it was over budget. When projects come over budget, it is the town's job and responsibility to try and fit the project within that budget. When Aspen View proposed this, yes we did approve it, but again, we didn't have any facts or figures about that road, so there's no use re-hashing the past. ”
Francis said that any funds the school division contributed to the school would likely need to come from the operational or instructional budget.
“I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that it could only come out of instructional funds, ” said Coun. Nichole Adams. “I know you guys have a capital reserve and I can't believe that if push came to shove, you couldn't find $50,000 or $100,000 to contribute to a project if there was a critical thing. You're just putting up a wall here and saying you can't find any money. I don't really think that's the case. ”
Deliberations lasted for half an hour, before Coun. Joanne Peckham made a motion for council accept the lowest cost option for the road and site services for the new school, being option two for the services and option three for the road extension.
Councillors Steve Schafer, Tim Verhaeghe, Shelly Gurba and Peckham voted in favour. Councillors Evans and Adams were opposed.
“I appreciate the partnership that we have, ” Peckham said. “It was approved at MPC. Four of us in this room approved it on principal. It's now a matter of integrity and sticking true to our word. ”
She added that, after voting against a similar motion at the previous meeting, she had done some research that gave her a better understanding of the situation.
Mayor Roger Morrill excused himself after calling the meeting, citing a possible perceived pecuniary interest.
