Borough takes concrete action on sidewalks

Anie Samson’s borough has decided to go public — as opposed to private — with sidewalk repair work this summer.

The Villeray-St. Michel-Park Extension borough made the call in November to hire six additional municipal blue-collar workers on a temporary basis to repair borough sidewalks, after the lowest bid on the latest sidewalk contract came in 25 per cent higher than the borough’s estimate.

And that was after the borough scrapped plans to award a contract for sidewalk work the previous year when the lowest bid, from Mivela Construction, came in 44 per cent higher than the estimate, Samson, the borough’s mayor, said.

Mivela’s for mer boss, Nicolo Milioto, dubbed “Mr. Sidewalk,” testified before the Charbonneau Commission this week.

He denied being the middleman connecting the Mafia, the city’s once ruling Union Montreal party and contractors working for the city in a plot to collect a 2.5-per-cent cut off those contracts for the Mafia.

Samson says Milioto called her office to speak to her when the borough council refused to award the sidewalk contract in 2011.

“I outright refused to take his call,” she said. “I’m very happy today with everything we’ve done. I don’t talk to contractors.

“(Construction) is not my business, I don’t know it. And it’s not my role either. There are procedures.”

The borough and the city’s blue-collar union still have to sign a letter of understanding to set up the temporary team to do the sidewalk repairs. The borough will also have to rent equipment and spend about 10 days training the sidewalk team, she added.