The Village of North Portal hosted members of the CBSA at a town hall meeting last night. 

"It was a meeting just to discuss the CBSA expansion project that will be starting this spring and summer," explained Village Administrator, Lindsey Davis. "And it was just to give the community a chance to ask questions if they had any and learn more about what is going to be happening and what the new expansion will look like."

"They are going to be adding extra stations so when you first come to the port, they'll be able to have additional service. There won't be as many lineups."

"Also, they are building a large inspection bay so they can actually pull semi trucks into a building to do inspections. And it will make it easier for them to do their job."

"The port is right in the village so for the last couple of years, they've acquired property from private owners and some from the village as well. They've acquired all the land that they will need for the expansion at this time."

"In a lot of ways, it's a good thing for our community. It's going to improve the looks of our community when you first come into town, we had properties that had become run down and derelict. They purchased those and they've been demolished so it's going to improve the looks of community. It also adds value to our community as well."

She added that the village has a good working relationship with CBSA.

"Partially that's because many of the people who live in our community, work for CBSA so it's an important part of our community."

"As the project progresses, the CBSA expressed that they want to keep in really good contact with the village and communicate any progress and things that we need to know so residents will not be inconvenienced by the project or keep those inconveniences to a minimum."

Construction is slated to begin soon.

"I believe that the company who was awarded the tender has applied for the building permit and once that goes through I'm sure they will be starting construction as soon as possible."