Hope for Highway 32
By Aasa Marshall
Prairie Post
November 30, 2007
Activists fighting to have Highway 32 repaired have high hopes - and reasonable expectations - now that Cypress Hills MLA Wayne Elhard has been appointed Minister of Transportation.
People from Leader and other communities along infamously-damaged highway have used creative ways of gaining recognition of the problem, but have long felt their protests fell on deaf ears where the previous government was concerned. Parts of the highway were so pitted that last year 29 kms of the 150 km road were reverted to gravel.
Gordon Stueck, a pharmacist from Leader, organized a "Pothole of the Month" calendar that featured nude, but strategically covered, residents from the community posing beside pits in the road. He started a website about the state of the highway, sold postcards and "I Survived Highway 32" bumper stickers, and erected a billboard declaring the neglected highway renamed in honour of the former Minister of Highways.
After the election, Stueck took down the billboard. When his own MLA was appointed the new Minister in charge of highways, he sat down and sent Elhard an email. The email said congratulations, but the sign hasn't been thrown away.
"I'm an equal-opportunity pick-er-on-er," said Stueck. "I'll pick on any politician. I warned him, I said I can be very good at it. And he said, Oh yes, I know you can."
Stueck's calendar may not have garnered much attention from the previous administration, but it caught the attention of people worldwide. The Leader Lions Club sold around 3,000 calendars, and netted around $40,000 towards fixing the community hall roof and other projects. The calendars went to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, 39 of the 50 contiguous States, and all over Canada.
Gary Meier, a town councillor from Leader, took part in a more traditional approach to government relations. He is part of the Highway 32 committee, which sent a Letter of Understanding to the Province. The LOU was signed by 22 stakeholders from the region, including representatives from the City of Swift Current, the Town of Leader, Southwest Community Futures, Action Southwest, Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA), Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), and six other municipalities.
The letter was sent to NDP Cabinet Ministers to call their attention to the state of the highway. After sending the letter, the Highway 32 committee joined forces with the Southwest Transportation Committee, and commissioned an economic study of the region and how it is affected by the broken highway. The third stage of that plan will be finished by the end of the year.
Meier was "elated" when he heard that Elhard would be taking the Minister of Transportation seat.
He said the committee will continue with its study, because it's so close to completion, but feels the highway will now get the attention is deserves without it; though the study will still come in handy.
"It's back-up," he said, "because they have to justify it also, so we still have the justification now."
Meier and Stueck both submit that they don't expect to see crews out rebuilding the highway immediately. What's important about Elhard appointment is that they feel sure their plight will no longer be ignored.
"At least these guys are going to be willing to talk, and we can listen," Stueck said. "Before, with the other government, we could talk and nobody would listen."
The new government has a grace period now, Stueck said.
"It takes you a couple years to get into things, and we don't expect road crews to be out there paving next spring. That would be an unreasonable expectation. I would expect to see some progress somehow over the next two years, whether it's a plan and development to say this is what we're going to do now and this is how we're going to do it."
Meier, too, simply looks forward to hearing that the government has a plan.
"I don't expect graders on the road tomorrow or anything," he said. "I know it's not going to be a one year project, but give us a sense of what's going to happen."
Reprinted with permission of the Prairie Post.
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