Coun. Dawn Luhning voiced her concerns about the length of time city projects are taking during Monday night’s city council meeting. 

In particular, she was concerned about the road construction projects on Woodlily Drive, Normandy Drive and First Avenue Northwest. 

Woodlily Drive was closed for nearly a month for repaving but reopened on Aug. 17, while Normandy Drive has been closed for nearly two months for repaving and First Avenue has been closed for months for the cast iron replacement program. 

“This has got to be frustrating for people that live in those areas. That four, five, six, seven weeks goes on or more and their street isn't open, and especially when you can see that nobody is working,” Luhning said. 

Director of Engineering Bevan Harlton agreed that the repaving on Normandy Drive and Woodlily Drive took much longer than it should. The Woodlily delay was an internal mistake with opening and closing the road.  

As for Normandy, Harlton said they received word on Monday that the paver broke down. The plan is to have the street finished by the end of this week.  

Meanwhile, Harlton said on First Avenue, cast iron can take five to seven weeks per block to complete. They are currently on the 1,000 block that has 180 metres of cast iron and 37 service connections, so it could take up to two months to complete. 

City Manager Jim Puffalt did add that contractors are held accountable if they don’t complete projects on time. 

“They're given a set of specifications, a deadline time to be completed, and then there's opportunities for penalties to be charged if they don't meet those deadlines," Puffalt said.  

“So, in the circumstances that we've talked about, we've gone from four years ago when I first came to town, we weren't completing I think maybe 50 per cent of our projects, and now we're close to 100 per cent.” 

Luhning did float the idea of construction crews working 24/7. Understanding that it might not be a popular opinion, she acknowledged that it would get projects finished much faster. 

“Yes, there will be equipment moving at night possibly, but maybe it'll get done two or three weeks faster and the street will be open to traffic and open for businesses that are on those streets or residences,” she said.  

“But I've had a number of people ask me about the length of time that these projects are taking and why the streets are closed, but the number one issue for them is that they often see nobody working.” 

Other projects Luhning raised concerns about included a message board for councillors to track complaints that has taken a couple years to get off the ground and a new VOIP system that has been on the city’s radar for years. 

Director of Information Technology Wade McKay said the message board is in the testing phase, while the VOIP system isn't a simple “off-the-shelf" system. The city has multiple lines of business with different needs. He said they started working on it in the past year and they are making progress. 

You can listen to the full exchange from city council below: