Mayor Sobolewski Hopeful for 50th Ave Light Resolution

The Town of Bonnyville has some issues with the street lights that were replaced on 50th avenue, on the west end of town. Earlier this month, Town Council discussed the lights at a regular meeting, and say the lights are not what they had requested or paid for. From that meeting Mayor of Bonnyville, Gene Sobolewski, met with ATCO, on January 20th, to try to resolve the issues, and reported back to Council on Tuesday that he is hopeful for an amicable resolution with ATCO.

“I have to say, there was a lot of surprise,” the Mayor indicated that ATCO hadn’t known the Town was dissatisfied with the lights prior to the meeting. “It was a forthright meeting, and ATCO has committed to undertaking improvements to the road. They’re going to, basically, try to make it right.”

The Mayor says ATCO has already began working to fix the issues, one of those being the lens to the lights were supposed to be tilted in a manner that would eliminate shadows, while increasing luminosity. “I would like for Council to go out and take a look [at 50th avenue], because they’ve adjusted the lenses and they’re adjusted the way the light was angled down on the road, and see if it’s meeting our expectations.”

Mayor Sobolewski says he brought up other issues the Town had encountered with the project. The Town was required to pay for the service up-front, they had believed ATCO employees were performing the job, then ATCO hired out contractors, and there was disputes with how many lights the Town was supposed to receive. The original agreement was for 19, however only 15 have been placed.  “The second thing that I brought up, was the whole process we had to go through. We had to pay first, then it seemed like the communication and accountability just dropped off. Both parties are going to be making a conservation effort to improve our communications.”

At the Council meeting, on January 12th, Councillors voted to write a letter and seek a resolve from ATCO’s head office in Edmonton. The Mayor feels after the meeting he had on the 20th, that is no longer necessary. “I think so far, we’ve gotten a tremendous level of service with the district manager,” stated the Mayor,  “it was a very good meeting, and I was quite pleased.”