By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

Osoyoos Town Council had a substantive discussion on a long term strategy for road improvements which resulted in the approval of $150,000 for a road assessment, asset management, and transportation master plan. These will be conducted over the next three years beginning in 2024. 

In addition to developing the long term strategy, the council also discussed multiple high priority areas in need of improvements. 

In 2022 capital budget requests were submitted to council for the following four areas: 92nd Ave – Highway 97 to Spartan, 89th Street – 70th to 62nd, Oleander – 89th to Magnolia, and Harbour Key – Cottonwood to the end. These particular requests were submitted because they were considered high priority in the Road Condition and Upgrade Plan in 2015.

The requests for the three sections of road other than Harbour Key included installing curb, gutter, multi-use path, drainage and streetlight improvements. This breaks down to a cost of $4.4 million for 92nd Ave, $3.2 million for 89th Street, and $2.1 million for Oleander.  

Harbour Key requires full structural rehabilitation, including resurfacing, erosion control, and bank stabilization work at the south end of the road. The cost of $2.3 million for this project does not include curb, gutter, sidewalk, or flood construction, but does include an already established need for a sewer installation costing $565,000, the latter it was mentioned will happen regardless.

One of the issues that needs to be worked out is the fact that the current Five-Year Financial Plan identifies $2.4 million to be used over the next four years which creates a substantial funding shortfall for all of these projects which would cost an expected $11.9 million. 

The report shows that one of these projects would be completed per year corresponding to the 2.4 million being spread out over that period.

Mayor Sue McKortoff summarized council’s position on the priorities by saying, “Harbour Key has been highlighted as the number one and the other three are shovel ready and we are ready to move on those if we get some money or if we decide to do it.”  

This means that this larger picture plan can be approved, but Jared Brounstein, Director of Operational Services will be back for a capital request in 2024 to move forward with Harbour key, and the others later on.

Councillor Jim King asked a couple important questions, querying whether Harbour key could just be resurfaced to save a million dollars, but Brounstein answered that it could be done but since the structural integrity is not there it will have to be re-done every 10 years. 

Despite being short $9.5 million, the town intends to apply for grants and try to get the funding through other methods. But as Mayor McKortoff said, “what do we do? Because if we say yes we are going to do this and we don’t get very much [grant funding] we have to come up with the money.”

For example, if council gets 30 per cent of the funding required from other sources, and they do not have the rest of the 70 per cent, then they can’t just cut back and do less such as only paving the road, because whoever provided the grant money is going to want to see the project they were told about with that multi-use trail, curbs, gutters built for example. 

Rod Risling, Osoyoos Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), said that “money can be made available, it depends on how aggressive the council wants to be in incurring debt.” 

This is part of what Brounstein was getting at by saying these are the things we have to start to get ahead of, “instead of leaving our infrastructure to the point of needing complete replacement.”  

McKortoff observed, “no matter what we do it’s scary isn’t it?” hinting at the responsibility these councilors bear in these types of decisions.  

“Why do we have to think ahead with these and kind of say we are in favor of them when we have to wait for a report from you to see if there is any funding?” King asked, referring to the fact that this is different from other procedures. 

Brounstein responded that “what we are trying to do is start thinking of the bigger picture. What I struggle with as Director of Operations is knowing how much money I have each year to spend on certain things. Right now it varies year to year.”