Councillors hoping residents will take their Pulse

By Chad Feehan / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Mount Pearl residents curious to know all the happenings in their community will find a helping hand in their mailbox this week.
Councillor Mark Rice said the Mount Pearl Pulse, a winter city guide with a variety of information about everything from municipal enforcement and youth programs to a calendar of events and a waste guide is in the mail.
Rice said a physical guide is a good way to reach residents who may not be online.
“It’s something new we’re trying in the city to try to get more information to the residents in the city… At least we know it’s getting in their hands,” he said.
Rice also encouraged residents to come forth with suggestions about information they would like to see in the summer edition of the Pulse, which will be released in July.
“We’ll see what we can do for you,” he said.
Other information included in the guide includes snow clearing regulations and information about the City’s new citizen alert system.

Rice offers snowclearing primer for benefit of residents

By Chad Feehan / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Councillor Mark Rice took some time at Tuesday’s public council meeting to acknowledge complaints he’s been hearing about snow clearing in Mount Pearl.
Rice noted that a number of concerned citizens reached out to him over the Christmas break, wondering when their streets would be cleared of snow.
Rice took the opportunity at council to clarify the current snow clearing system as it stands.
“If we get anything under 25 cm of snow, the flyers are going to be out doing the main drags and the street,” Rice said, referring to dump trucks with blade attachments at the front and side. “The plows don’t come out until 12 o’clock in the night.”
Director of Public Works Glen Dollimont elaborated further.
“Based on our level of service right now within the city, anything under 25 cm of snow we’ll be in that area within four to six hours once the snow ends,” he said. “Any less than five cm we’ll handle it with our flyers. Anything five cm and above we will call out our full load fleet and put a loader on every one of our 14 routes to push and clean up the snow as required.”
Anything above 25 cm will get the same level of service but within a six to eight hour time frame.
“The residents think the plows should be out there 24/7 and that's not the case,” said Rice.
After Councillor Jim Locke requested further clarification on details of the snow clearing service, Dollimont explained that even though there is a loader for each of the 14 routes, a snowfall measuring under five cm is generally combated with any number of the City’s fleet of 10 flyers and a salting.
“Eight of those are tandem trucks with a blade on the front and the wing and two of those what we refer to as single axles with a blade on the front but they still do the same job as a tandem truck,” Dollimont said.
Locke then repeated his understanding of the policy to make sure he had understood it right.

“Under five you’re not going to see the same number of pieces of equipment on the street, so it will be a little bit longer before you see a flyer,” he said. “But over five cm we have a dedicated piece of equipment to each of the 14 routes, so you might see equipment a little sooner as opposed to when we we’re going around salting with our flyers. If you only had six units out, it’s going to take a little bit longer to traverse the entire 14 routes in the city.”
“I think you got it,” said Dollimont.
Mayor Dave Aker pointed out that five cm of snow may not look the same every time it falls, which can be affected by a number of environmental factors.
“There’s always a plan, and Director Dollimont, you’ve told me many times that sometimes the plan you end on is not the plan you started with,” observed the mayor.
Dollimont agreed, stating that five cm of snow with 100 kilometer per hour winds is a totally different monster than if no winds are present.
“It’s an orchestra, I guess, at times,” he said. “Every snow event is different.”
Residents looking for more information can find the City’s snow plow trackers on its website, which interactively displays the current and past movement of municipal vehicles throughout the city.

City made a lot of progress in 2023 despite inflation’s challenges, says Aker

By Mark Squibb

Like municipal councillors everywhere, members of Mount Pearl City council saw inflation eat away at their spending power the past couple of years.

“Procurement has been an issue the last two or three years, especially with inflation being what it is,” said Mayor Dave Aker, in a year end interview last week. So the cost of doing business has gone up, up, up.

“But we’ll keep plugging along, I think we’ve got good estimates,” said the mayor. “We have to make sure we watch every dollar and find new ways of doing things. For example, some of our truck tenders came in quite high, and council have asked staff to maybe procure trucks closer to the manufacturer. We had a recent experience with a garbage truck that ultimately didn’t deliver despite being the subject of a tender. And so, council is looking at those types of things. But I think inflation is going to be the biggest challenge council will continue to face.”

Despite rising costs, the City completed road upgrades on Farrell Drive, Birch Avenue, and Roosevelt Avenue in 2023. Aker said the work was a challenge.

“It’s the way the economy is,” said Aker. “There’s a really tight labour market, sometimes the work is slower than you would expect. And we didn’t run into too many technical problems, but I think that was the biggest challenge — getting work done before winter set in. We managed to get the underground servicing in, and we managed to get one or two top coats of pavement on, so from that point of view, it was challenging, and frankly we appreciate the patience of our residents, especially those living on those streets. And going forward, the plan, like every year, is to do more streets. The primary one next year will be Holden Street.”

To that end, council has earmarked $4.5 million over 3-years through the Multi-Year Capital Works Program to upgrade water, sewer, curb, and gutter on the street.

The decision to upgrade Holden Street was very deliberate, as the street will tie into the City’s long planned development of land sandwiched between Topsail and Kenmount roads, known as the Northlands.

“Council has been very strategic in making sure that Holden Street gets upgrades,” said Aker. “The services there will ultimately marry with the services in the Northlands area.”

And despite inflationary woes, council has committed to developing the area, which it says will one day be the site of over 1,800 homes.

In fact, you may have noticed that land has been cleared at the intersection of Kenmount Road and Mount Carson Avenue. Aker said council has approved the grubbing of land for a future gas station, and he pinpoints the land as the beginning of the Northlands area.

“You have to start on the perimeter and work your way in,” said Aker. “We’re seeing the beginnings of it, and council is really excited to see that development move forward.”

He added council has given staff the go-ahead to begin the process of installing a new water tower in the area.

Earlier this year, council issued a request for proposals for an “owners advisor” team that will advise the City in planning, engineering, business, legal and other matters related to the development of Northlands, and in November, the provincial government announced the City would be on the receiving end of $6.5 million in funding for both a new community centre and upgrades to Holden Street and Ingerman Street.

Aker said he’s also glad to see the City undertaking the development of both a new municipal plan and transportation plan in 2024 (council has set aside $300,000 for the development of both plans) and added feedback from residents and business owners in regards to Budget 2024 (balanced at $58,483,356) has been good so far.

“But we can’t forget that there are people out there who are finding things more and more expensive,” said Aker. “Some can’t afford the current level of taxes. We’re all dealing with inflation, and so for 2024 we’ve set aside some funding to continue to help and fund existing programs that make our recreation fees more accessible for some families. And for senior citizens, if you’re collecting the GIS, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, we’ve expanded the discount on property tax from 20 to 25 percent. So, those are small steps but I’m glad council recognises that we’re all impacted by inflation.”

Aker also extended his best wishes to Deputy Mayor Nicole Kieley, who has been recovering after being severely injured earlier this year when she was struck by a vehicle.

“We’re glad to see her recovery is moving along,” said Aker. “At some point during the new year, I anticipate that we’ll be back to seven members. I’m not sure when. It has to be done at her pace. But we’re looking forward to having the whole team back together in council chambers sometime, I hope, in 2024.”

Costs go up on old swimming pool cleanup

By Chad Feehan Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

 December 20, 2023

The City made a recent funding contribution from the Province official last week, by passing a motion to accept some $6,467,086 in multi-year capital works funding for 2023-2026.
About half the money will cover part of the cost of a new community centre, which had previously been announced The facility will replace the building on Park Place and include amenities such as a splash pad and skating rink.

Other public works projects covered by the funding include more upgrades to the water and sewer service on Holden Street at a cost of some $2.85 million.
In other infrastructure-related news, the cost of removing an underground tank at the location of the former swimming pool on Stapleton Road has jumped by $3,375 after contractor associated fees to Pinchin Limited were approved by council.
The contract for a hazardous building materials assessment and oil tank assessment and supervision was previously awarded to Pinchin in the amount of $23,891. However, this amount did not include the costs of a contractor removing the tank. Work is set to be expedited to be completed before the winter season.
And an application to use a portion of a dwelling on Westminister Drive to operate a seamstress and tailoring business called Your Taylor was also approved by council last week.
The hours of operation of the proposed business will be 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and the permit does not allow for any construction, accessory buildings, storage of goods, or signage.
All the motions were passed by council unanimously.

Craft Fair at Church of the Ascension

Artist Darrell Yetman of Whiteway was at the Crafting Until Christmas fair at the Church of the Ascension on the weekend of December 16, selling his paintings of idyllic, rural Newfoundland settings. To the right of Yetman is a painting of his old buddy Jack Hambling, a re-creation of a sketch he made of his friend while fishing on the North Harbour River in St. Mary’s Bay, sometime in the late 80’s. The pair hiked for an hour and a half through bog and marsh to get to the spot, only to watch the sunset soon after their arrival. In fact, they didn’t even catch anything that day. “The only bites we got were from flies and mosquitoes,” Yetman said. Although Yetman would go on to give Humphries a painting of another scene in the area, his friend died before seeing the painting of himself. “This one is one of my favorites,” Yetman said, pointing to the work. “I still have the original.” Chad Feehan/Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Photo