City crews need safe work zones to fill potholes — so slow down, mayor urges

Mayor Clive Tolley is urging motorists to slow down while driving through construction zones so crews can safely repair the streets — including filling the many potholes that plague the community.

The issue of those pesky, tire-destroying potholes arose during city council’s May 23 regular meeting, as Coun. Dawn Luhning inquired about what city administration’s plan was to fill the numerous road fissures throughout the community.

“I don’t drive the entire city all the time, but I do notice the same ones are not being filled,” she stated.

The public works department has been patching potholes for several weeks because the hot mix asphalt plant has started producing material, said Bevan Harlton, director of engineering. City crews have also been milling — cutting out — square or rectangular sections of road and making more extensive repairs.

Some streets of focus include Coteau Street West, Ninth Avenue Northwest and sections of Main Street north of the downtown. Meanwhile, crews have filled roughly 1,000 potholes year-to-date.

Jason G. Antonio - Moose Jaw Express

“I hadn’t heard of anything that’s preventing or holding up our public crew from getting that work done. From our updates, it’s been moving forward pretty efficiently,” added Harlton.

Those crews have been focusing on addressing priority 1 streets because they contain bus routes, said Rod Montgomery, acting director of public works. He also reiterated that staff are milling sections of streets, so instead of filling in numerous potholes in a patchwork manner, they are cutting out parts and leaving behind new squares of asphalt.

The focus on priority 1 streets caught Luhning’s attention, who pointed out that 13th Avenue Northwest from Grace Street to Caribou Street has numerous fissures.

“Hopefully it is on the list because that is a bus route and it is awful,” she added.

Coun. Doug Blanc recalled attending the recent Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association conference, where he visited a display featuring a cold mix asphalt material that the vendor — who gave the councillor a small bag of material — guaranteed would work in the winter. He wondered if city administration had considered this material.

Harlton replied that he hadn’t investigated alternatives to hot mix asphalt but would consider discussing this new material — and would gladly accept Blanc’s sample.

When asked about potholes during a post-meeting scrum, Mayor Clive Tolley said the city has been running campaigns to encourage motorists to slow down in construction zones. He pointed out that crews erect barricades to work, but motorists regularly disregard them and drive speed through.

“If there’s a barricade there, it’s for a reason. And we want our employees to be safe and be able to work on our streets and roads and do this patching without being worried somebody’s going to clip them,” he stated. “… it’s supposed to be slow down to 30 km/h.”

Tolley also thought the municipality should investigate using the new cold mix asphalt material in the winter. While the hot mix asphalt plant is now producing material, he pointed out Moose Jaw faces the same dilemma as other municipalities: a lack of money to fix continually deteriorating infrastructure.

According to the website CanInfra, the infrastructure deficit in Canada averages between $110 billion and $270 billion — or higher in some estimates.

Moose Jaw is always looking for federal funding for projects but isn’t always successful, such as with its recent application for money for the new outdoor pool rebuild that Ottawa turned down, said Tolley. However, the municipality must always have shovel-ready projects to pursue any funding opportunities that arise.

The mayor saw his job as attempting to grow the city by encouraging more commercial and industrial businesses to come here so they create jobs and generate revenue through property assessments. Those actions could help Moose Jaw hold its own financially when dealing with infrastructure.

Event Centre’s Q1 deficit was two-thirds less than expected, report shows

Jason G. Antonio - Moose Jaw Express

The Moose Jaw Events Centre saw a deficit of more than $50,000 in the first quarter of 2023, which was nearly two-thirds less than budgeted for that period.

Meanwhile, the venue’s food and beverage sales saw a net profit of $104,884.

From Jan. 1 to March 31, the Multiplex had actual revenues of $739,186 and actual expenses of $743,324.

While this led to a slight operating loss of $4,138, after including the $100 expense for Ticket Rocket gift cards, $47,431 for the management fee and $875 in revenue for client building rentals, the venue finished the quarter with a deficit of $50,794. This represented a cost recovery rate of 93.48 per cent.

In comparison, building manager OVG360 had budgeted $689,251 in revenue and $796,539 in expenses, leading to an expected operating loss — after adding the management fee of $46,452 — of $150,364.

Therefore, the difference between the actual and budgeted income, expenses and net loss was $49,935, -$53,215 and -$99,570.

City administration presented the first-quarter financial report during the May 23 regular city council meeting. Included in the document was financial information about the Events Centre/Multiplex.

Council later unanimously voted to receive and file the report.

Food and beverage sales

From Jan. 1 to March 31, OVG360 generated $462,801 in total concession and catering sales, while the total cost of goods was $157,777. This led to a total gross sales profit of $305,024.

After removing total payroll, total variable expenses, management incentives and management fee, the net profit was $104,884.

These numbers were based on 59 events that attracted 43,261 people during the first three months of this year.