Bowden promised more rest stop cash

BOWDEN - A meeting between Bowden mayor Robb Stuart, town chief administrative officer James Mason and Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Brian Mason appears to have paid off.

On behalf of town council, Stuart and James Mason travelled to the legislature in Edmonton last week to say if the town didn't receive more money to operate the rest stop alongside Highway 2 in the community, it would be closed early in the new year.

However, Minister Brian Mason promised Bowden will receive $50,000 a year for an indeterminate number of years to cover maintenance costs for the facility.

"We haven't got it yet, but it's promised to us, so I'm pretty sure," Stuart told the Albertan. "They're just finalizing the details, right?"

Previously, for about the past three years or so, the town had received $20,000 a year.

Stuart is pleased to receive that promised cash, but concerned it might not be enough.

"We're hoping we will get better than that, because he said, 'will that be acceptable?' And we said, 'well, we're not sure; depends on how the maintenance contracts work out and all that. It might be $70,000 a year for the operation of it,'" Stuart said.

"He said, 'well, if it goes higher than 50 we can talk about it some more and see.'"

However, that money is only for maintenance of the rest stop. That fact concerns Stuart because he says the rest stop building's roof, for example, is "on its last legs."

Stuart says Brian Mason was non-committal on that point.

"'Oh well, we'll have to get into that later,' he said. 'Right now, we'll help you out in the maintenance end of it and we'll try to keep the communication lines open,'" Stuart said.

The meeting lasted a total of about 25 minutes.

"It was great. He was really good to deal with," Stuart said. "I was really pleased. And we will crunch numbers again here and see how it's going to work out for the future of the rest stop."