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6 + WATERLOO CHRONICLE + Wednesday, February 6, 2008 Several homes in your area will be given the opportunity of having a metal roofing system installed on their home at a reasonable cost. This lifetime product is capturing the interest of homeowners across the country who want to know this will be the last time they will have to reâ€"roof their home. Our product is environmentally friendly and comes with a lifetime, transferable warranty with an excellent choice of colours to compliment your home and is going to be introduced to your local market. Your home can be a show place in your neighbourhood. We will make it worth the time to investigate the many benefits of metal rooting. Please call. ToLL FRee 1â€"866â€"956â€"1919 SEVERAL HOMES IMMEDIATELY WANCTCED e City of Waterloo will provide I crossâ€"border power services to a Walâ€"Mart shopping centre just across the municipal boundary in Woolwich Township. Council unanimously approved the move to provide water, hydro and saniâ€" tary sewers to the centre on Monday. The shopping centre will feature 304,000 square feet of space, 134,000 of which will make up the Walâ€"Mart, said Joel Cotter, a development planner for the city. By GrEc MacDonaLp Chronicle Staff â€"Mart development gets approval "The decision was really made in 2002 as part of an (Ontario Municipal Board) settlement," Cotter said. "This is just council giving authoriâ€" zation to move forward," he added. The move had originally been decried by the UpTown Waterloo Busiâ€" ness Improvement Area, but the develâ€" opers agreed to provide funding for an uptown improvement initiative that developers hoped would lessen the economic impact. Walâ€"Mart still needs the approval of Woolwich Township council. They were expected to vote on the matter Tuesday night. Either way, Waterloo will service a power centre on the outskirts of town that will be made up of commercial spaces, Cotter said. It took five years for the matter to come before council because the developers were undertaking an enviâ€" ronmental assessment, he said. The developer was also responsible for several road upgrades needed to address the increased traffic in the He expects the environmental assessment to be completed by the spring and construction to follow soon after. Costs should come down next year "The developers have been moving it forward at their own pace," Cotter Continued from page 1 community, the mayor said. And since the award will be going to a different city this year, travel costs should be lower in 2008, she added. "Last year was unusual â€" yes we did have a lot of costs, but again it got us to a point (where) we attained a goal for this city that will last forever. This year it‘s going to be back to normal and the way we‘ve always been," she said. "You‘ll see a difference." With city council looking for budget savings in order to find money for an infrastructure fund, keeping travel expenses low should be a priority, said Coun. Scott Witmer, who didn‘t claim any travel expenses last year. "I‘m expecting to see a dramatic decrease in travel costs this year," Witâ€" mer said Farbrother is allotted 30 days of vacation and a maximum of 18 sick days per year, according to a freedom of information request made by the Chronicle. He also hopes that means seeing the CAO in the office a little more. Combine that with trips to China, New York, Calgary, Ottawa, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., and the CAO may have been out of the office for more than a quarter of the year. That could limit Farbrother‘s effecâ€" tiveness, Witmer said. "We always need to try to minimize (time out of the office) as much as posâ€" sible," he said "I would like to see city staff at city hall and inside the city and taking care of business in town." But Farbrother doesn‘t believe the city will break down if he‘s not sitting in his office. "When I‘m out of my office, I always have my BlackBerry and always in conâ€" tact," he said. "We have good people working at the city and we respect their capabiliâ€" ties and respect them to get on with the dayâ€"toâ€"day if I‘m out of the office."