Athabasca County seeks to engage in long-term planning to address ailing county roads and respond to resident complaints about them.
The county's public works committee discussed a long term county road construction plan during its June 19 meeting and voted unanimously to place the topic on its next meeting to re-evaluate circumstances. Councillors also agreed to come back with ideas for prioritizing problem roads in the county.
Coun. Dennis Willcott said roads should be the county's top priority, but it will take time to address.
"Right now, my goal one is roads and I don't see anything wrong with that. We know we're not going to get it done in one year," Wilcott said during the meeting. "I want to put the money into the roads and that's the end of the story."
The discussion came in response to complaints and issues with county roads being damaged by frost boils. Spring weather has resulted in roads throughout the county being difficult or outright impossible to get across for parts of the season.
"The public perception to this is we need to do something," Deputy Reeve Warren Griffin said. "It's a matter of planning."
Griffin suggested suspending subsidized dust control or the roadside mowing program in 2019 in order to find more money in the budget for extra road projects.
"If we can get a few extra reconstructions or a few more shoulder pulls done in 2019, we're putting our money where our mouth is," Griffin said during the meeting.
Coun. Larry Armfelt agreed with the need to find more money in the budget for road construction, but cautioned against cutting into the mowing program.
"To find extra money to put into our roads because it is needs, I agree with that part," Armfelt said during the meeting. "But let's be careful on what we take away."
Coun. Penny Stewart said free dust control should be out of the budget.
"Free dust control needs to go away until our infrastructure is back to where we're comfortable with. It's going to take a hard toll and there's going to be some unhappy people," Stewart said, adding the county needs to consider things short and long-term. "I think we need to do this for five to seven years."
Making priorities
Griffin said planning for a list of road priorities would have to be done with the understanding not every division is going to get an equal amount of attention.
"I don't think we can just say we do a few extra dollars in every division. I think we have to say for all, county as a whole," Griffin said. "Yes, I have some bad roads, but Division 7 by far has worse roads than I do."
County manager Ryan Maier suggested a third-party review of county roads to deliver a priority list, to address possible complaints from residents about which roads are getting done first.
But Willcott said administration should be able to judge road priorities and councillors should be able to consider what is good for the county as a whole.
"It's sad when you're a councillors, even though you got your divisions, you're going to fight because somebody else in the county is getting their road fixed," Willcott said. "I am Division 2 first, but I am for the whole county."
Councillors also discussed possible criteria for a road priorities list, including traffic, type of traffic and residential access.
Maier said there is some good timing with a long-term road plan, as municipalities have to submit three-year operating and five-year capital budgets starting in 2018. But he added it will take time to come up with road priorities.
Armfelt said county council would have to commit to whatever priority list comes forward.
"We have to get started. We can't go overboard. We know we have financial responsibilities," Armfelt said. "We have to commit to the deal come hell or high water. That's what I'm prepared to do now. Let's commit to the deal and make it work as best we can as time goes on."
