Infrastructure was a large part of Weyburn City Council Tuesday night, with four separate motions about requests for proposals and tenders on the agenda. Each of the items that came in was key items for the infrastructure of the city, and all had money set aside in the 2023 municipal budget to cover the operations. 

The first tender presented in the meeting was for the design of equalization lagoon infrastructure upgrades. The need for the upgrades was identified during a hydraulic assessment performed last year as a result of the localized flooding in May and June. The evaluation found areas within the system where there was a limitation in the pumping capacity. This came with recommendations for the updates to address the issues at Lift Station No. 1 at the lagoon. 

The overall recommended upgrades have a budget of $750,000, however, this was just related to the design of the upgrades. There were four proposals submitted, ranging in price from just under $70,000 to just over $140,000. The administration recommended the submission from MPE Engineering, which had a price tag of $69,898.69 and the council agreed, voting unanimously to accept the proposal. 

The next tender that was before the councillors was for the painting of traffic lines in the city. The proposal also called for the possibility of a three-year agreement with the city. Calling for semi-annual applications for the traffic markings and annual applications for the curb painting and airport lines, the budget included $115,000 for the work within the city and $15,000 for the work at the airport. 

There were three bidders, however, only two of the bids were for all of the work. Alberta Parking Lot Services would be the recommendation from the administration. Their proposal for the work within the city came to a total of $93,445.91, which was under budget by over $20,000. The cost for the line painting at the airport, however, was $17,323.77 which was slightly over budget.

“We have a lot of problems with inflation as so many other places do,” said Mayor Marcel Roy after the meeting about proposals coming in over the budgeted amounts. “That’s where it comes in.”

He added that while people see the effects of inflation at the gas pump and at the grocery store, it also trickles down into things such as construction costs, which have an impact on municipalities and their budgets. 

The submissions for the request for proposal for unidirectional water main flushing were tabled next. The work, which helped to clear accumulated deposits from the water main through the city, had a budget of $40,000. The winning submission came from 3319628 Canada Inc, a numbered company out of Ontario. While questions were raised about the validity of the company, it was pointed out they have done the work in the past. Their submission was also the only one that was under the allocated budget. 

The largest item that was before council Tuesday night was for the replacement of two roofs for city-owned facilities - the Soo Line Historical Museum and the Tom Zandee Sports Arena. The two replacements had a combined budget of $315,000. The submission that was selected by the administration and unanimously approved by the council came in at a total of $374,533. The submission, from Atlas Apex Roofing, would be completed by November 30th of this year. It was recommended that the difference in cost from the allocated budget to what was approved be covered by withdrawing from the City of Weyburn’s reserves. 

“Those were kind of staved off and been patched all the way through, and now we’re at a time where we can’t do that anymore,” explained Mayor Roy. “All due respect to some of the past councils, but that's one of the ways that ends up happening is that we can kind of limp things through but then finally somebody’s got to make that final decision where they have to do these major repairs, and we’re kind of on that final point.”

In addition to the motions on the proposals, there were two proclamations for the City of Weyburn. The first was for Public Works Week, which runs until Saturday. The second proclamation was for Pride Week in Weyburn, which will be from June 4th to 10th. 

Council also approved the citizen survey that is planned for the coming weeks. The details are expected to be announced later this week.