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Acton park $50,000 over budget CYNTHIA GAMBLE Staff Writer The Town will go ahead with building the Acton skateboard park, even though tenders came in $50,000 over budget. Council approved the tender award at last week's meeting. The park, named the 3 Musketears Skatepark, will be located on the northwest corner of the Acton Arena and Community Centre property. In June, the community group, Acton Sports Action Park, presented council with $100,00 achieved through fundraising. The total budgeted for the park was $204,000. But when the Town tendered the project only two companies returned tender packages-- and both were over the budget amount. The lowest bid, and the one that was accepted, came from Gateman-Milloy Inc. of Kitchener, at $263,516.77. The shortfall of $50,400.73 will come from the Development Charges Deferred Revenue account and the Capital Financing Reserve Fund. According to the Town's Parks Design and Construction Co-ordinator Rakesh Mistry, the skate park cannot have any elements removed to compensate for the shortfall because it is designed in a circuit configuration to accommodate skateboards, in-line skates and BMX bikes. Removing an element, he said, would disrupt the flow with potential user conflicts. More costs would be incurred to redesign the park and delay its startup construction to the spring of 2007. Currently the construction is expected to begin this fall. Mistry attributed the high tender bids to the timing of the construction, the high Canadian dollar making materials more expensive, higher operating costs such as fuel, and the specialized concrete forms required for skateboard parks. Only a few companies are qualified to do the work, he said, and many had already lined up fall construction jobs in the spring. He suggested in the future the staff could look at completing the fundraising and issuing tenders earlier. See ACTON, pg. 3 Vikings go biking More than 600 cyclists, including the uniquely dressed Paulette and Laurent Thibault, participated in the RONA MS Bike Tour from Brampton to Waterloo over the weekend, raising $405,000 for multiple sclerosis research and services and exceeding the original fundraising goal of $375,000. Participants cycled 190 kilometres over two days, traveling from Brampton to Waterloo and back again ­ motivated by the mission to find a cure for MS. The tour wheeled through Halton Hills early Saturday. Photo by Shawn McAlpine