Steamer truck contract awarded
A mobile steamer truck will soon be coming to the City of Whitehorse’s operations department after Whitehorse city council approved the supply contract.
At council’s Oct. 13 meeting, members voted to award the $488,573 contract to Inland Kenworth Ltd., which submitted the only compliant bid for the work.
The steamer truck is primarily used to thaw frozen infrastructure such as water and sewer mains, though it can also be used to remove graffiti, operations manager Richard Graham told council at an earlier meeting.
Council awards data storage contract
Insight Canada Inc. will be awarded a $214,803 contract to provide the City of Whitehorse with an upgrade to its data storage systems.
Whitehorse city council voted to award the contract to Insight at its Oct. 13 meeting.
Insight submitted the only compliant proposal for the contract.
The replacement is part of the city’s work for cyclical replacement and upgrades to its data storage system.
COVID brings new floor covering the CGC
There are no major community events at the Canada Games Centre for the foreseeable future as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, but when those events get underway again, the city will have a new floor covering for the flexihall.
Whitehorse city council voted Oct. 13 to amend its capital budget by adding $29,998, to come from the Yukon government, to purchase a new floor covering for the flexihall at the CGC.
The purchase comes after the city provided the territory with the covering it has to protect the hardwood floor in the flexihall during ceremonies and special events (i.e.: the Remembrance Day ceremony, Spruce Bog craft sale and others).
As Keri Rutherford, the city’s acting manager of recreation and facility services, explained at a previous council meeting, when the territory set up its Respiratory Assessment Centre at the Yukon Convention Centre in March, the city provided the floor covering and some storage racks for the centre.
Modifications were made to the floor covering to fit the convention centre’s floor space and, thus, it’s no longer suitable for the flexihall.
After the respiratory centre was closed, the territory agreed to replace the covering with the cost coming in at just under $30,000.
With the budget now amended for the amount to purchase the covering, city officials will begin the purchase process for it.
Contract for transportation study awarded
Morrison Hershfield Ltd. will oversee the next city-wide transportation study in Whitehorse after Whitehorse city council voted Oct. 13 to award the $344,550 contract to the firm.
As city engineering manager Taylor Eshpeter noted in a report to council the last major traffic study for the entire city was done in 2004, though there have been a number of more focused studies in recent years on transportation for various areas of town (the Second Avenue corridor study, for example) or for specific modes of transportation (i.e., the bicycle network plan).
“It is now time to embark on the next city-wide study to establish a long-term vision and transportation master plan,” he said. “The city-wide transportation study is meant to provide high-level direction and objectives for transportation over the long term (20 years), as well as provide key direction to specific transportation issues over the short to medium term (five to 10 years).”
It’s expected within the study will be a framework that will allow the city to optimize Whitehorse’s transportation network, along with ways of addressing safety issues, determining the level of service required and identifying priorities to shape a transportation system that allows a variety of methods for residents to move through the city.
Morrison Hershfield submitted one of five compliant proposals for the contract and was one of only two that then moved on to the second part of the evaluation.
The first part of the evaluation looks at the project team, past experience, methodology/approach and the proposed schedule. To move onto the second phase of the evaluation, proposals must score at least 80 per cent.
Fees and local content are then considered in the second phase.
Through that process, Morrison Hershfield had the highest scoring proposal.
Funding for the study will come from the city’s portion of the federal gas tax.
False fire alarm fees will rise
The fees for having the Whitehorse fire department respond to a false fire alarm three times in a year or more will increase after Whitehorse city council’s Oct. 13 meeting where council passed third reading of a bylaw that will increase the fine from $250 to $500.
At a previous council meeting, Brittany Dixon, the city’s manager of financial services, explained the increase was identified as a way to bring in more money to offset the expense of responding to false alarms.
The fee for a second response to a false alarm will remain at $200 and there is none for the first response.
Contact Stephanie Waddell at stephanie.waddell@yukon-news.com
