New proposed bypass still not acceptable

Shannon LeClair

Times Reporter

 

The Strathmore and District Chamber of Commerce held a meeting on August 23 to discuss chamber business and the proposed highway realignment. Hal Lust, owner of Strathmore Motors, spoke to the crowd of concerned residents about his lunch meeting with Minister of Transportation Luke Ouellette. Since June 21 over 2,000 information letters and petition forms have been mailed out. 

“We want 10,000 of these signed by fall for our MLA to take to Edmonton,” said Lust.  According to Lust, MP Kevin Sorenson, MLA Arno Doerkson and Ouellette were bombarded with calls and complaints, which Lust thinks was the reason the original, Cheadle to Gleichen route was disregarded. The new plan for a bypass around Strathmore will be one kilometre south of town, which business owners and residents are still against. The meeting at the Strathmore Civic Centre was to inform residents of what has been going on with Ouellette, what the Town and County Highway Association plan to do and to offer residents a chance to bring their concerns and questions forth to Lust. 

The members of the group heard a variety of fears, concerns and recommendations. 

“This little highway is going to destroy my farm, it goes right through my house. I’m not worried about the real estate, I’m worried about my house,” said Ken Shields. Shields is retired and owns what he called a hobby farmhouse. 

“We need an over or underpass to tie the Town together on both sides. I think the town and the county need to come forward with some sort of proposal,” said Gus Wahl, another concerned resident. 

Unconfirmed rumours have been going around, that some of the Town councillors are in support of a bypass one kilometre south of town. This has residents upset that the town officials are not listening to the concerns of the residents. 

“I think the next key to our fight is having full support of Town council,” said Perry Banadyga, owner of Home Hardware. 

“I’ve always alluded that more information is better than less. We should perhaps develop a plan of our own and present it to them (transportation minister). Maybe the Chamber should make a motion to council to have a survey done,” said Bruce Klaiber. The survey Klaiber is proposing is the town hire someone outside of the transportation ministers office to come and do their own survey, of where a highway should be or if the town even needs to be bypassed at all. 

“Talk is not enough, until we put talk into action it’s not enough,” said Lin Walker with the Strathmore and District Chamber of Commerce. Residents left the meeting with a little more information than they may have had at the beginning and with even more determination. Many of the businesses took two pages of petition sheets to their stores so residents may fill them out before shopping or grabbing a bite to eat.