The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Pipe replacements city council called urgent were not completed this year as planned, raising questions about how dire the project really was. Council voted in September to promptly replace the leaky water mains beneath Green Street between the Phelan Avenue and Elm Avenue intersections. It was viewed as so crucial that council agreed to begin the work unusually late in the year and to draw the necessary funds from their yet-to-be-completed 2013 budget. The work began in earnest but crews could not finish before winter took hold, meaning the benefits of completion will not be seen until next year. 'I don't understand how you call it an emergency and then stop and say, 'Aw well, we'll finish in the spring,'' taxpayer advocate Blair Sapergia told council at their meeting last week. 'How does that count as an emergency?' Municipal Administrator Mark Kolt said the city took a 'calculated risk' in starting the project so late in the year. He blamed uncooperative weather for pushing the completion into next year. Mayor George Fontaine said it's a fact of life that 'intervening forces' can impede plans. 'Some things we can control and when we can, we do,' he said, 'and some things we can't and you just try your best.' Kolt said 'a number of breaks' in the water mains last summer and fall 'forced a reassessment of how long we could put that project off.' See 'A...' on pg. 12 Continued fom pg. 7 In terms of the cost of the work, Kolt said he has not heard of any 'large overages that are contemplated right now.' Mayor Fontaine said the city has made 'a lot of headway' in renewing municipal infrastructure even as the most urgent projects change 'day to day and month to month.' Coun. Colleen McKee said the city is at a point where it reacts to 'critical' repair needs as they pop up. 'We can do the best that we can to make a proactive plan to get things done, but we're in reactive mode and that's going to go on for a while,' she said, 'because I think what's happened is, things have been left for so long that we're now in a state where we have to start dealing with these things. We don't have a choice anymore. And it's going to cost what it's going to cost and we have to spend what we have to spend. That's the way it is.'
