Moose Jaw residents will soon begin to see work on high street.
At a special council meeting on Friday, a motion was approved to remove the contractor who was hired to perform the water main replacement work on the street last year. G. Ungar Construction Co. Ltd has been removed from phase two of the Cast Iron Project.
"(It is) not something that we're proud of, we want to get this fixed. Our job is to fix roads. Our job is to fix water lines,” Mayor of Moose Jaw Fraser Tolmie said.
Construction on the road, CAA named as the worst road in Saskatchewan for 2018, began in July 2017, but was not finished by the completion date of November 30, 2017. That delay caused the city to take over the project.
"Our hopes were that this contract was going to be dealt with and that they would be on time, but again our focus right now is getting high street fixed,” Tolmie said.
The City expects to deal with a legal challenge, but is focusing on the repairs.
Moose Jaw’s engineering department will take over the remainder of the work.
"Tuesday morning crews will be in there and things will start happening and we're going to get at it. It's our highest priority and we're going to make sure the work gets done,” City Manager Jim Puffalt said.
"We want to restore confidence in the businesses down there,” Tolmie said.
But with no schedule for construction, some of those businesses aren't convinced this move means anything.
"Basically, they're going to come down, have a looksee, see what they need to do and take it from there. So we're not really any further than a year ago it feels,” Kallan Smith, Manager, DDK Pets.
Smith says customers have told him they are going to other stores to avoid driving down the street, and he would like to just see some work begin.
Council says it wants to get the project done as quickly as possible, but no timeline is available yet.
