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Bay Roberts looking for loan for capital works project

By Mark Squibb | Oct. 8

The Town of Bay Roberts is looking for a loan to cover overage costs on a hefty project.

“Last fall, probably October or November, we did an approval to borrow request for $250,000 to cover what was at that time the overage on the Bishop’s Road project,” said Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Nigel Blackwood. “It turned out that the overage wasn’t quite $250,000 at that time, so Municipal Affairs wouldn’t let us borrow $250,000 at the time because we had only spent $230,000. So, we didn’t proceed with that borrowing at that time. Since then, of course, we’ve had to add all the other work that we have to do this spring.”

That work, including a substantial un-budgeted water main replacement in 2020, pushed the price of the project up by a considerable amount.

Black said the Town could try and juggle some department budgets, but things were already tight financially.

The proposal put forward by the CAO was to borrow $625,000, which was the entire amount of overage.

The Town voted unanimously to borrow from the Bank of Montreal for a five-year fixed term with a 15-year amortization with a 2.1 percent interest rate. The monthly payment would be $4,050.77.

The Town’s share is 50 per cent of the provincial capital works funding project — roughly a million dollars.

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