PORT HOOD: Municipal councillors are being asked to compile a list of j-class roads by September to submit to the provincial government.
During the regular monthly meeting of Inverness Municipal Council in Port Hood on July 7, Warden Bonny MacIsaac asked that the lists be submitted to municipal staff.
“I’d like you to think of two or three, I guess, of your roads you’d like to see paved,” she told council. “Ones you’d like to see paved, or repaved, that are j-class.
“It doesn’t mean you’re getting them paved. I’m just telling you that. We hope.”
The warden agreed to a suggestion from CAO Keith MacDonald to invite Nova Scotia Public Works officials to explain their criterial for accepting submissions.
“Why didn’t something get approved and why so few,” MacDonald said. “Again it goes into an internal process by the Nova Scotia Public Works team in Halifax. They have some type of assessment system within their processes.”
MacDonald said public works determines the classifications of roads.
“It’s a type of sub-division road that the Province of Nova Scotia categorizes. They have a number of various road categories,” he explained. “It is the only road classification that allows municipalities and the provincial government to partner 50-50 on either paving or repaving.”
The CAO said he’s had “struggles in the past” getting an updated road list from the province.
“We’ve seen a road listed, then we’ve submitted and then they said, ‘it’s not on the list’ but it’s on their list that they provide but it’s not on their internal data base, for some reason,” he said.
MacDonald added that it’s hard to predict how many, and which roads will be approved for cost-sharing.
“Some years there’s zero, the roads identified by council, two years ago there was a significant amount approved,” he added. “We’re not part of that review process, so we just submit them.”