The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Intersection reconstruction Town to close parks comes in $75,000 over budget temporarily after spraying of pesticides said Ward 2 Councillor Bryan Lewis, "We didn't get a finished product. Doesn't the Region have some obligation to pay some of Once again, tenders for a Halton Hills cap- this?" In 2004, Halton Hills assumed ital project has come in over budget prompting council to approve $75,000 over-expen- Mountainview Rd. from Halton Region and at that time, Halton Region provided $280,000 diture. for improvements including widenCouncil awarded the contract for ing for an additional lane of norththe Guelph St./Mountainview Rd. bound traffic and resurfacing of the intersection to Cox Construction of road from the intersection to Guelph for $1.12 million. Campbell Gate. The first phase of the projectDirector of Engineering Public electrical underground construction Works and Building Rick Henry said and hydro relocations-- was already Halton Region provided the been completed in the fall/winter of $280,000 as one-time funding as a 2004-05. The second phase, which result of the road download, and that began Monday, includes minor the money the Town has to work RICK widening on Guelph St., widening of with. HENRY Mountainview Rd. on the east side, "That was in 2004 and this is asphalt removal and replacement, new sidewalks, concrete curbs and islands, towards the end of 2006. ...Prices of contraffic signal installations, lighting and land- struction materials have raised substantially in the past year or two and (so) we're short," scaping. The Province of Ontario is kicking in said Henry. Lewis said the process needs to move $765,000 as part of the Connecting Link profaster to save the taxpayers money. gram (Guelph St. is Hwy. 7). But Henry pointed out that the delay came This is fourth tender in the last month to come in over-budget-- previous ones were from the provincial government, which did Acton skate park (%50,000), Acton fair not approve monies for the second phase in building ($123,00), and Georgetown leash- 2005, but instead, waited a year later. (Cynthia Gamble can be reached at free zone ($8,000). cgamble@independentfreepress.com) "I think Halton Region owes us money," CYNTHIA GAMBLE Staff Writer CYNTHIA GAMBLE Staff Writer Changes have been made to the Town's pesticide spraying policy that will includes parks being closed temporarily after spraying. The changes, approved by council at a recent meeting, were prompted by complaints from local residents in the spring, claiming they were not notified of spraying so they could tell their children not to enter the parks. The new changes include: · Restricting public access for a period during, and three hours following, a pesticide application. This is will be a one-year trial. Cost of the new reader-friendly signs will be $1,200. · Advance notice will be given to school principals, parent councils and licensed child care centres (excluding homecare providers) when the application is occurring in their neighbourhood. · A revised public notice allowing schools and daycare operators to send home with children. It is the Town's position to use pesticides only when other alternatives have not been successful or thresholds on weeds or bugs have been exceeded. The Town has already advertised this month about the spraying of town-owned properties between Sept. 13 and Sept. 29. (Cynthia Gamble can be reached at cgamble@independentfreepress.com)