Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Despite the fact the City of Prince Albert turned down a request by the RM of Prince Albert to annex a part of 48th Street to widen and pave it, the RM is looking forward to a future relationship.

“We’re obviously disappointed that the City didn’t agree with our proposal,” Reeve Eric Schmalz said. “But, we look forward to pursuing other relationships with the City as far as infrastructure goes.”

City council rejected the RM proposal by a 6-3 margin at their Sept. 27 meeting.

The province does have a process in place for municipalities that want to pursue a boundary re-alignment with another municipality that is not in agreement, but the RM has not decided yet what it will do.

“We’re still considering our options going forward on the project,” said Schmalz. “We haven’t made our mind up how we’re going to go forward from here.”

The RM wanted to own the entire street so they could upgrade the road and divert traffic away from a very busy intersection, he said.

Coun. Don Cody of the City of Prince Albert publicly questioned the RM’s intent when it came to the area, saying that he suspected the other municipality wanted to develop it and lure businesses away from the City.

Schmalz denied that had anything to do with the proposal.

“That area is not developed and there are no plans to develop it,” he said. “The reason why we’re doing this is to alleviate stress and congestion on the intersection of 48th Street and Highway 2.”

In the summer it is one of the busiest intersections in the area, according to Schmalz.

“Rather than petition the provincial government to put a set of traffic lights at the corner, we thought we would attempt through this process to have traffic diverted over to Highway 3 in what is really a very dangerous intersection,” he said.