The incumbent city councillor for Ward 6 says the city could do a better job identifying roads that need work and prioritizing which roads to work on and which can wait.
René Lapierre says after speaking “to so many people” and receiving “many great suggestions and ideas,” he highlighted in a recent news release some of the issues he’d like to tackle over the next four years, if he’s re-elected.
First and foremost on that list of priorities is coming up with a better way to maintain city roads, always an issue in a city with thousands of kilometres of roads, but a relatively small tax base.
“We must develop a better system than the current one utilized to decide what roads are redone and when. We must spend the money in a different way than what is currently used,” Lapierre said. “Many other municipalities are approaching road work utilizing new innovative methods including materials such as concrete or cement. I believe we need to learn from these trials and adapt them to the northern Ontario climate and evaluate the efficiency as well as the life cycle of these innovative approaches.”
Besides working with his council colleagues and staff on a new system for road maintenance, Lapierre said crack-sealing efforts should be expanded to all local roads.
“I will bring a motion forward to include crack-sealing of local roads,” he said. “I would like to increase the life cycle of our roads utilizing more effective preventative measure. The city’s current policy is to do crack sealing on all the highways and major/collector roads but not on local roads.”
Moving away from transportation, Lapierre said he would like to make trail enhancements at the Howard Armstrong Recreation Centre at priority as well. There are “non-official” trails at the centre that people are using and the candidate would like those trails to become official.
“Providing staff with direction to adopt the non-official section of trail into official trails, make the whole trail network fully accessible (AODA accessibility standards) so everyone can use them, and integrate this work simultaneously as the city proceeds with the development of a twin-pad arena facility,” he said.
Staying with recreational amenities, Lapierre would also like to see the Centennial Arena lands in Hanmer be developed into a baseball complex for residents in the area.
“The city owns enough land to build two more baseball fields, a renovated field house, with washrooms and storage for baseball associations that require the space,” he said.
You can visit Lapierre’s Facebook page for more information on his candidacy.
