It appears most of the details of a funding agreement have been finalized between the province and town of Altona for the downtown drainage project.

In June the province announced it would provide full support to six climate resiliency projects in the province and Altona's drainage issue was one of those.

Mayor Al Friesen says town council approved the official agreement with the province which spells out some of the details of the project.

"Our contract engineering firm continues to work with Manitoba Infrastructure to determine the final design specifications in terms of what can be a part of the project and what cannot. For instance, the cost of relocating the cenotaph will not be a part of that particular project along with some other things."

Fixing Altona's downtown drainage project is expected to cost about $2.4 million dollars. Construction will begin in late April and should be completed by the end of July.

 

Meanwhile, COVID-19 has forced town council to revamp the way it plans its priorities for the new year.

Town council usually sets aside a full day for its annual planning session, however, pandemic health restrictions have made that process a challenge.

Mayor Friesen says they could have met together on Zoom for their planning session.

"Council really didn't relish the idea of spending 8 hours looking at a computer screen. We all spend enough time doing that already. We simply felt that it made more sense to extend our regular council meetings and do it there."

The annual planning session allows councillors and the administration team to meet together to discuss some of the bigger picture items for the community in the coming year.