The Rural Municipality (RM) #33, Moose Creek, has become the scene of a roiling conflict between some rate-payers and the elected council over a paving project.
The project, which will see a 13.6 km stretch of highway 361 paved, will end up costing the RM an estimated total of over $1 million.
The stretch of road the project aims to pave (the 361 highway west of highway 9, all the way to the border of RM #34 Browning) runs directly through a corridor where there are a considerable number of well-sites and batteries, but not a single rate-payer actually lives along the stretch, which is one of the issues being raised by those protesting the move.
"This project had been spoken about since 1999," said Reeve Murray Rossow. "It really isn't a new development."
While the disaffected rate-payers claim that the money being spent on the project would be better spent elsewhere, the administrator for the RM, Sentura Freitag, offered some statistics to illustrate the reasons for the council's decision.
"From the traffic counts we have, which are from 2007, so I'm sure the numbers are higher now, we see Six Mile Road, two miles south of 361, having 36.9 percent of its traffic being heavy trucks," Freitag said. "Two Mile Road, four miles south of 361, had 33.3 percent of its traffic heavy truck. Ten Mile Road, three miles to the north of the highway, saw 27.6 percent of its traffic in heavy trucks."
"Highway 361 itself, in the area we are looking to pave, had 43.3 percent of its traffic load as heavy truck."
With so many heavy trucks moving through the region, the council focused on 361 as a corridor for that traffic.
"By paving 361, we figured that it would draw that heavy truck traffic away from the other grid roads," Rossow said. "We spend an enormous amount of time trying to maintain those roads, so getting the traffic off of those, especially the heavy truck traffic, and onto a paved surface, would save us a lot in maintenance time."
To support that opinion, Frietag pointed to compiled maintenance time from 2010 in maintain those roads.
"On the highway, we spend 216 hours of labour time grading, maintaining and mowing 361," Frietag said. "In 2009, it was a total of 236 hours."
"Also in 2009, the Two, Six, and 10 Mile roads took about 225 hours combined for maintenance," Freitag continued. "While the number of hours spent upkeeping those roads in 2010 dropped to 202 hours, it is still a lot of rate-payer money that goes out for maintenance."
Another issue both Rossow and Freitag annunciate was that the RM has become legally bound to carry on with the upgrade to the highway, regardless of what else is happening.
"We signed the agreement with the other RMs that were taking part in the project, as well as the Ministry of Highways, back in May, to take part in the project," Rossow said. "We are stuck now because we would get stuck with all kinds of settlement payments anyway for breaking the contract."
Looking at the council minutes, the project was passed by council and signed on the meeting of May 12, 2010.
This was read into the minutes and adopted during the council meeting on June 9, 2010.
"I know people are upset, but the time for them to raise issue with the project would have been back then, when we were still able to refuse or withdraw from the agreement," Rossow said. "Now, we have to move ahead."
Asked if the project had been published at any time, Freitag insisted that it had been, as she forwarded minutes from the RM council meetings to the newspaper in Oxbow as well as The Observer in Carlyle.
With the numbers of letters to the editor that had appeared in recent days, some accusing the RM council of violating the Municipalities Act by not recognizing or acting on a petition that had been circulated amongst the rate-payers, it was important to ask whether these accusations had any validity.
"When we first got the petition, it turned into a real issue," Freitag said. "On one hand, we have a legitimate petition, and on the other hand, we have a binding contract."
"It was a real catch-22, so I called the SARM [Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities] lawyer to ask what we should do," Freitag said. "The lawyers informed me that, since I had to break the rules on one side, it would be best to do it on the side that would not open the RM to a lawsuit from the project partners."
As for the road paving itself, Rossow pointed out that, while the money involved was not small change, it was just a fraction of the total cost.
"When we entered into the project, we reached an agreement with our neighbouring RMs regarding how much of the highway was to be resurfaced," Rossow said. "The ministry was behind the project, and is paying 70 percent of the actual costs, plus the RM can provide some of its costs through in-kind labour."
Asked if the project was part of the RM's business development responsibilities, Rossow responded that he definitely thought it was.
"We on council have to look out for the people who live here, and try and make sure that the area grows," Rossow said. "Yes, it is true that no one lives on the stretch of road, but it is a major route for business traffic in the region."
"Many of our people work, or have family that work, in the oil business," Rossow said. "Keeping the oil business flowing helps them all directly, plus the amount of taxes we collect from those businesses have helped the tax-base right across the board."
"If we can help keep the companies happy, help focus the traffic along that one corridor, and maybe attract further drilling, then we are doing our job as a council," Rossow said. "If anyone wants the facts about the project, or anything else, they should just come into the office and ask."
While the project is still moving ahead, the tender for the paving work has not yet been accepted.
