ACTUAL I TÉ • NEWS
One last reprieve for ecoLarose project
three-way financial partnership between all the levels of government.The UCPR had ear- marked $4 million from its working fund as a «good faith» demonstration that it is ready to share in the projected $12million cost for the project. Parisien and his staff need time to find a private sector outfit willing to take the counties’ place as the regional partner, otherwise the applications for one-third partnerships with the provincial and federal governments become null and void. Most of the mayors on counties council indicated willingness to allow Parisien and his staff a littlemore time to explore private sector interest in ecoLarose. But the decision still stands to take the UCPR’s dedicated $4 million and divide it up between the eight member municipalities for their own infras- tructure needs. Counties council approved deferring a vote on the resolution to cancel ecoLa- rose and allow administration one month to explore other options for financing the project and to present a report during the June regular session.
GREGG CHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
The ecoLarose is on “life support” now for a few weeks more so that counties admi- nistration can see if there are any poten- tial partners in the private sector for the project. If not, then counties council will “pull the plug” for sure on ecoLarose before Canada Day. Stéphane Parisien, chief administrator for the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR), made a last-ditch plea to themayors on counties council during theMay 27 regu- lar session for a short stay of execution on their decision during the committee of the wholemeeting earlier in themonth to cancel ecoLarose. «I’masking you to leave it on life support for at least a month,» said Parisien, noting that administration needs time to see if there might be private sector interest in taking over as the face of Prescott-Russell on the proposed regional conference-and-ecolo- gical interpretive and research centre. «It’s a project that is important to the community.» Over the past three years the UCPR has spent about $260,000 in planning and other preparation work, including clearing lo- cation space in the Larose Forest, which the counties manages. Parisien also noted that right now the UCPR’s name is on the application documents sent out to both the provincial and federal governments for a
Deadline for bike path funding help Staff at the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR) are under the gun to get a brief worked up in time for the June 9 deadline for applications to the Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program. The federal government created the one-time-only program as part of next year’s celebration of Canada’s sesquicentennial. The counties’ public works department wants to apply for funding help to extend the UCPR’s effort to provide proper paved shoulders along county roadsides to accommodate the increasing amount of bicycle tourism traffic passing through Prescott-Russell. Last year, the counties modified its roadwork improvement program policy to include paving of county road shoulders to make them more attractive for cyclists and thus keep bicycles off of the actual vehicle traffic lanes of county roads. Making that a mandatory part of the annual roadwork program does reduce the number of kilometres of county roads that are repaved or get upgraded to paved condition. A Canada 150 grant would help extend the UCPR paving program in 2016. – Gregg Chamberlain
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