A story in the Toronto Star reveals that the City of Montreal has decided to award an emergency pothole repair contract to a construction consortium that includes firms named in the Charbonneau Commission municipal corruption scandal:
Interim Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum went so far as to conduct an online poll to judge the city’s mood about the contract. He revealed ahead of Friday’s vote that 60% of 5,200 citizen respondents were against the contract being awarded. But Applebaum, who was appointed by council colleagues to manage the corruption fallout after ex-mayor Gérald Tremblay resigned last November, endorsed the contract anyway.
“We have very few options,” said Marvin Rotrand, a city councillor who demonstrated a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the road-maintenance racket. “We can’t build an asphalt plant between now and April 15.”
The asphalt world, it turns out, has very exacting standards. For optimum repairs, the product must arrive at the offending road divot piping hot and right on time. That means that asphalt facilities over the years have been strategically located. On average, Rotrand said, they are no more than 24 kilometres from any possible pothole.
The story goes on to note that the municipal council dismissed the idea of producing its own asphalt as “too expensive.”
