City council reaffirmed Monday night the tender that was awarded to E-C King to replace the 9th Street bridge across the Sydenham River in downtown Owen Sound.
When the tender was awarded last week, council asked staff to report back about opportunities for savings in the project, which is substantially over its three million dollar budget.
It turns out there are no substantial savings to be had, so the project will go ahead for 3.4 million dollars, plus taxes.
But before that figure could be reaffirmed, Councillor Bill Twaddle tried to have the project expanded so it would include reconstruction of 9th Street from 2nd Avenue West all the way to 2nd Avenue East.
The tender as awarded only included reconstruction to 1st Avenue East.
The extra work would only add approximately 200 thousand dollars to the pricetag.
It was pointed out that the work will have to be done anyway within a few years, and doing it now would minimize disruptions to traffic and the businesses along 9th Street.
As well, when the work is finally done, it will undoubtedly cost more than 200 thousand dollars.
But a majority of councillors say the extra cost is not justified.
In particular, Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners says she will not support putting any more money into the project.
City/County Coun. Arlene Wright says the city simply must stop spending money unnecessarily.
Twaddle says he doesn’t disagree with the 6-3 vote against his motion, but he feels the issue deserved another look from council in its entirety.
Neither Stanners nor Wright were at last week’s meeting.
Work is still expected to begin on the bridge by the end of this month or early in June.