Driver patience and a bit of sun is needed after an abundance of culvert failures this spring and a week of rain and snow late last month created a frustrating time for some area motorists as they plow mud as opposed to just driving down pristine country roads.

Lorne Willner, Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Arm River, said the snowmelt around four weeks ago was very fast and water ran across roads in a lot of places because the culverts couldn’t keep up. He said the two inches of rain and two inches of snow they received a couple weeks ago then washed out a number of those same roads again making for muddy conditions.

“All you do is you put flags up,” said Willner. “You barricade roads off, block roads (and) put warning flags up. I haven’t heard of anybody that’s had accidents. That’s all we can do is warn people that the hazards are there or block the roads, so they don’t drive on them.”

Willner said at this stage of the spring the RM can’t bleed mud or haul gravel when the roads are too muddy to drive on, so they just have to wait for the sun to come out and dry up some of the water. He said it is going to be an ongoing process to fix all the washed out roads and dig out the culverts, so people need to drive according to the current road conditions.

“If there’s flags, if there’s markers (or) if there’s barricades then beware that there are hazards and watch out for them,” he said. “As far as driving in the mud (people) just have to be patient. There is nothing we can do about the muddy roads. The gravel’s there, it’s just all chewed up.”

RM of Dundurn Reeve Fred Wilson said they have a few heavily travelled roads that were in pretty rough shape, but their higher ground helped to dry them out a little faster. He said getting the snow graded off before the original melt also helped keep the roads in good condition.

“We had a couple spots (with) maybe a four or five inches layer of slop on top of them,” said Wilson, noting they’ve run their grader a few times since the melt and have already put the gravel back in place. “A couple of them we graded it right off, but most of them it wasn’t too bad. We don’t have near the roads like (Arm River) has. We’ve got Highway 11 right through the middle of us, so that takes a lot of pressure off us.”

Hilton Spencer, Reeve of the RM of Craik, said the abnormal runoff this year has washed out some of their roads. He said the recent rain and snow then made the roads really sloppy, but the RM employees are out trying to get everything fixed.

To read more please see the May 5 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The Davidson Communiplex enjoyed an outstanding 2013 revenue wise and so, in turn, did the town’s taxpayers who subsidize the building.

Trevor Ouellette, recreation director for the Town of Davidson, said they were able to recover 78 per cent of the Communiplex’s $280,000 worth of expenses last year bringing $220,000 back into Davidson’s coffers. He said the goal is 40 to 50 per cent of revenue recuperation in any given year and in 2013 the town had only budgeted to recover 45 per cent, so the jump to 78 is quite the feat.

Ouellette said Davidson increased minor hockey rates to bring them in line with other towns and established an equal ice rate for the Tractor Bellies, Babes on Blades and Old Timers hockey teams to help create some of this new revenue generation. However, the main new generator of revenue this year was increasing the usage rate of the rink by bringing in more out-of-town events.

“By bringing in outside money it helps us,” said Ouellette, noting skating fees produced $5,000 more in 2013 than forecasted. “It really reduces the taxpayer’s responsibility to subsidize the building. Even though $60,000 still seems like a whole lot, to have $280,000 worth of expenses (and) have the taxpayer responsible for $60,000 versus $150,000, that’s huge. To be honest that’s a pretty good year.”

In addition to the higher skating fees, Ouellette said the rink kitchen brought in over $17,000 more than estimated. This improvement in skating fees and kitchen revenue go hand in hand and has to do with having a plan and system in place to welcome outside managers into Davidson, help them with putting on a tournament and have the resources available to pull it off.

“We can say, ‘here is what you need, this is what has been done in the past (and) we have this and this and this. We have an excellent volunteer base that can help out in the kitchen, so we can make sure you guys get food.’ The community makes my job a little easier by (being able to say) I can provide these services.”

Streamlining costs and improving the usage of the rink has been a priority for Ouellette since he was hired as Davidson’s recreation director in 2011. This focus has resulted in the taxpayer’s cost of subsidizing the Communiplex going from $143,000 in the first year he took the job to $68,000 a year later and finally $60,000 in 2013.

To read more please see the May 5 print edition of The Davidson Leader.