The City of Sarnia has hired a familiar face as its new director of engineering.
Mike Berkvens, who has been performing the duties on a temporary basis since mid May, has accepted the position full time.
"I was with the City of Sarnia for 28 years," says Berkvens. "During that time I've had a number of positions with the city. When I retired in April, I was the manager of development and transportation. I was looking after site plans, new subdivisions and also transportation. Looking after traffic lights and the movements of the City of Sarnia as far as both bicycling and walking and driving."
Berkvens will continue the ongoing effort to address crumbling infrastructure.
"We have a long list. A lot of our streets were built 30, 40, 50 years ago and they have a life cycle of 25 to 30 years. So, we're falling behind. We're always looking for opportunities and new innovations to resurface the roads. There's different methods of microsurfacing and pave and shave. Once we get the bigger streets [paved] we can go back to the local streets and get a lot more streets paved for the same amount of money."
Berkvens replaces Andre Morin, who died suddenly in May.