Paving project, hospital contribution, and fire study approved by Lachute council

Rough road

A major paving project in Lachute is going ahead one year early.  Council approved borrowing $1 million to resurface Rue Principale between Avenue Hamford and Boulevard de l’Aéroparc.  Péloquin said the project was planned for 2020 but the weather conditions during the past winter have damaged the road significantly so council decided to do the work a year in advance.

Help for hospital

Council agreed to contribute $2,500 to the Fondation de l’Hôpital d’Argenteuil.  Mayor Carl Péloquin said the contribution is for new equipment related to cancer care at the Lachute hospital.  He noted that the MRC d’Argenteuil also contributed $24,000 to the hospital foundation this year.

Labour agreement

The city and its so-called “white collar” workers—those in supervisory positions, are close to reaching a new collective agreement.  Péloquin said negotiations are complete and they are currently in the stage of accepting final submissions for changes from the union.

Basement cleanup

Council has approved further work on asbestos removal from the basement of the city hall.  Péloquin said it is in the area of the former police station.  The mayor was unable to place a direct cost estimate on the asbestos removal work.

Fire study, agreements

Both Lachute and Brownsburg-Chatham council have approved moving forward with the audit phase of a study looking into regrouping fire protection services in those two municipalities, along with St-André-d’Argenteuil.  The study, which is funded by the Québec government, is a review of how fire services are provided.

“Everything’s on the table,” said Péloquin about what the study could lead to.

Possibilities include an increase in shared services between the departments, and a full or partial consolidation into a single, regional fire department.

Lachute and Brownsburg-Chatham have also approved new mutual aid fire service agreements where the fire departments in each municipality assist each other whenever called.

Péloquin said Lachute’s fire department is already providing more of what he called “automatic services” where they respond to a call in a neighbouring municipality without waiting for a request to do so.

He said providing automatic services allows fire departments to respond to calls that are closest by, even if they are in another municipality, and are now required by provincial law.