City gets $6.3 million to improve infrastructure
Aug 27, 2008 - 10:27 AM
By Moya Dillon
OSHAWA -- The City of Oshawa will take home $6.3 million from a provincial surplus that saw $52 million distributed across the Region.
"It's a great source of one-time money," Oshawa Mayor John Gray said. "It will allow us to get some backlogged infrastructure dealt with and we'll be better for it as a community."
While many municipalities are looking to spend the surplus money on roads and bridges, Mayor Gray said Oshawa will look at improving other areas to get the most out of the money.
"When all the municipalities are looking to do road and bridge work, the prices for that kind of work go up," he said. "We want to make sure the projects we're setting out to do don't have that same level of interest so we get the most bang for our buck."
Some projects Mayor Gray mentioned as possibilities for funding included rehabilitating the Oshawa Harbour to make it more people-friendly, demolishing the old Civic auditorium and replacing it with soccer fields or something that would "maintain the strong recreational model," and several other park plans the City has been eyeing.
Mayor Gray said the funds will probably not be spent on roads and bridges since most of them are maintained by the Region, which is responsible for their repair.
The surplus came about as part of the recently passed Investing in Ontario Act, which requires provincial surpluses more than $600 million to be paid out to municipalities. This year the province will dole out $1.1 billion in surplus funds to be used on roads, bridges, public transit and other municipal projects.
"It's not permanent, but to have one-time funding at least is a shot in the arm," Mayor Gray said of the surplus funds, which he likened to experiencing a windfall in your personal life, such as someone winning the lottery. "The province is sharing the wealth and that's a positive thing."
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