Downtown business owners were successful in lobbying city council to change the times of a planned power outage last week, arguing the impacts of a full day in lost business.
The power outage was originally scheduled for the south side of Market Avenue to the river, and from Second Street to Fourth Street from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The outage was part of the city’s ongoing upgrades on power lines that have caused several other power outages in previous months.
At the Committee of the Whole meeting on April 9, two local business owners attended, asking the city to reconsider some alternate plans as they, as well as their employees, would have lost a full day of work and sales.
“You want to close us down for an entire day, I will lose thousands, so will small businesses,” said Kathy Boivineau, owner of Home Hardware. “Half a day or Sunday or something where we do not lose an entire day’s income.”
A memo to council notes that the city had received “feedback” from other businesses in the outage area.
Council asked Manager of Operations Dave Reid about the process for determining when the outage would take place and the implications for moving the time.
The additional costs to change the time of the outage were between $8,000 and $15,000, and Reid said the contractor doing the work had safety concerns, causing the work to be done while the line was dead.
Council asked whether either a 1 p.m, or 4 p.m. shutoff was possible.
This is the second time work has been attempted on this particular section, according to a memo to council; the first time work could not be completed because of some non-standard wiring that requires extra care. This second, longer outage would complete the work.
“Because of the contract and labour agreements, an extra cost would be incurred to move the outage later in the day,” the memo reads.
At the committee of the whole, council opted to bring it to the evening agenda for a decision.
At the evening meeting, councillors debated the merits of some different options. One factor council considered was how many residential properties may be without power and heat into the dinner hour and evening by moving the time.
Eventually, council settled on a time of 1 p.m. for the outage, weighing the potential costs of a bigger outage against how many residents would be without power, and the impact on businesses. This comes at an estimated cost of $8,000, but it could be slightly higher, Reid said in response to a question from the Gazette.