BUSINESSMAN Chuck Lewis is hoping to begin installing flashing amber lights, which he wants to buy for city school zones, before Christmas.

Lewis said he provided one of the beacons, which is undergoing a two-stage testing process, to the city earlier this month.

“They’re the same beacons that have been installed all across Toronto, so I can’t see there being any problems because I’m sure Toronto tested them, too, before they installed them,” Lewis said.

Lewis, general manager of Expert Electric, has offered to purchase and install solar-powered flashing amber lights for all reduced-speed school zones in the city.

A civic spokeswoman said there are 225 schools that have reduced-speed zones.

Each light costs around $3,500, with two lights per zone — one for each traffic direction on an adjacent street. The minimum cost of the initiative would be $1.575 million. Some schools have more than one adjacent reduced-speed street, adding more lights and higher costs to the equation.

Surprisingly, for a gift with such a large price tag, the city has acted cautiously.

Lewis approached the city with the idea four years ago but was rejected by officials, who claimed the province wouldn’t allow him to do it.

Coun. Kevin Klein heard about Lewis’s original offer shortly after taking office following the 2018 election, and in early July, raised it at the Assiniboia community committee. The committee endorsed it and recommended the offer to the property and development committee, which deals with offers of gifts to the city. The committee also supported the offer and instructed the administration to investigate.

The administration prepared a report for the committee’s Sept. 4 meeting endorsing the offer and said a formal legal agreement would be drafted and brought back to the committee. What the public service didn’t tell the committee, however, was that the public works department wanted the lights tested before an agreement would be drafted and signed.

Lewis said testing the lights before the city agreed to accept the offer made sense.

“There’s no point in me giving them several hundred beacons only to learn they won’t stand up to our conditions, but I don’t see how they won’t.”

Lewis said he was surprised to learn that even with the committee’s direction in September, civic officials were hesitant to buy the one light needed for testing.

“They said they didn’t want me to provide a light that they might possibly wreck during the testing phase, but they said no one at city hall was willing to sign off on the purchase of the one light they needed for the test,” Lewis said. “Can you believe it? It only cost about $3,500 to buy, but no one was willing to approve the purchase. I said, ‘What the heck, I’ll buy it.’ I’m going to buy them all, anyway.”

Once approved, the lights will be installed on the same posts that the reduced-speed signs are posted on. They’ll be programmed to flash only during the time stipulated in the bylaw and posted on the signs: 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, from September to June.

Coun. Brian Mayes, chairman of the property and development committee, said councillors will get an update on the initiative at a meeting on Monday.

Lewis said the city set up the beacon at one of its works yards two weeks ago for a month-long testing period, adding that will be followed by a second month-long test in a school zone.

David Patman, the city’s manager of transportation, told the committee at its Sept. 4 meeting the testing is necessary to ensure it meets regulatory standards and so the city is not exposed to any future liabilities.

Lewis is convinced the testing is only a formality.

“They said after one month, if it passes all their tests, it will be put at a school for a month. Then after that, it’s a go,” he said.

“They seemed happy with it the last time I talked to them about it. There were no concerns.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca