Municipal officials want to reassure Wallaceburg residents they are taking their comments to heart.
A report to council on upcoming repairs to the Base Line Bridge has been delayed by a month and half to account for an overwhelming amount of public feedback.
Director of Infrastructure and Engineering, Chris Thibert says they were overwhelmed with the number of comments from the public.
“We really saw the importance, and we want to make sure we capture the public’s comments and feedback properly to relay it back to council,” Thibert says. “I reached out to our contractor and they were able to work with us to extend their bid so it no longer expires in March, which allows us to get a little bit more time before we have to go to council.”
As it stands now, residents have until Friday to submit comments on the online survey, but feedback can still be called in or emailed to the Civic Centre.
Thibert says the project proposal came in over budget, so they wanted to make sure they considered every option before putting it to a council vote.
“The questions that are asked of us are did we think of everything, did we think outside the box, are we trying to ultimately save money for the taxpayer,” Thibert explains.
There has been some speculation in the community that municipal officials had their minds made up on how the repairs were going to proceed unless residents were able to change their mind, but Thibert says that’s simply not the case.
“The sole purpose of this meeting was to put every potential option we could think of out on the table for people to comment on, and even accept new comments that we didn’t really think about.”
Thibert says administration has heard loud and clear how important keeping the river open to boat traffic is to residents in Wallaceburg.
The report will now go before council on April 27th.