Prince George City Councillor Brian Skakun was met with silence after asking if Administration made a commitment to the developer of the George Street Parkade — before it could return to Council for approval.
The parkade was approved in tandem with a housing project in 2017 and originally planned to cost just $12.6 million.
As of the latest update, it’s estimated at about $34.1 instead, including updates to nearby infrastructure and utilities.
Since its inception, the parkade has seen multiple cost overruns, putting it over budget by $11.7 million before infrastructure updates.
“I’m going to ask the question again. Did Administration go ahead and commit to the $20 million dollar parkade before they got the OK from Council, in any fashion?” inquired Skakun.
“I don’t want to beat around the bush, I want a simple yes or no answer.”
The question was asked a total of five times before Acting Deputy City Manager Ian Wells responded with ‘yes.’
“Council was not aware, that we had an updated price and committed to go ahead with the project,” he clarified.
A further cost breakdown and timeline of events were presented at last night’s (Monday) Council meeting.
This followed a motion proposed by Skakun in December, requesting more information on the series of unfortunate events leading up to the $34.1 million dollar price tag.
“We voted for a $12.6 million project when Administration knew it would be over $20 million. The people in this community are outraged and I’m outraged, and the more I look into this, it just stinks in my opinion,” he said.
“None of this would have come out if I hadn’t asked for this report and I think that is absolutely appalling.”
Cost increases were attributed to tariffs on American aluminium and steel, as well as increased labour costs due to a ‘competitive’ construction market.
$11.7 million went towards replacing ageing infrastructure in the area and relocating utilities, the report explained.
Council originally approved a budget of $10.65 million for the relocation and replacements, which fell under the original project cost.
The total spending, with utility replacements, worked out to be approximately $34.1 million.
However, some of the extra spending was not classified under the George Street Parkade project; the sewage, water, and storm lines needed to be fixed regardless.
That cost would have to eventually be faced during the construction of the new pool if it wasn’t attended to during the parkade’s construction.
As the timeline became clear, frustrations began to boil over.
The report reveals that in July of 2018, A & T Projects Development notified the City Manager that the project would overshoot its original cost estimate of $12.6 million.
“In my opinion, that would have been a great time to let Council know that we were significantly over that budget, upwards of $8 million dollars more than what we were approving at the time,” mused Councillor Kyle Sampson.
“It’s disgusting, it’s unacceptable.”
In March 2019, almost a full year after the City Manager of the day was made aware of the updated cost, Council was asked to approve the now $20 million project — still only listed at $12.6 million.
This was not recorded as an error, as the previous rules around delegated authority allowed the City Manager to approve cumulative budget amendments in a year of up to five per cent of the total operating budget.
Council voted to scale back the spending power of the City Manager in November 2020, a position most recently held by Kathleen Soltis.
In September 2019 an updated estimate was provided by the developer, taking into account pricing for mechanical, electrical, fire suppression and membrane roofing.
The new cost was $22.5 million.
Then, at the November 2019 Finance and Audit meeting, the committee received a report on significant capital projects, showing the total cost of the parkade to be $16.4 million.
“This is where my problem lies 100 per cent. We can’t just roll over this and say let’s do better in the future. This is a real travesty,” stated Councillor Terri McConnachie.
McConnachie inquired if the increased delegated authority was meant to cover up the ballooning cost, but she was told that was not the case.
Amending the delegated authority the first time was meant to put a cap on what the City Manager could approve, but in doing so, the per-project basis was abandoned.
This allowed the power to be used all on one project, instead of one million dollars per project.
“That (former) City Manager intentionally told us that this was going to provide us with greater oversight. In turn, it gave her the opportunity to finally, officially approve what she had already approved a year and a half earlier,” said Sampson.
“There are a million things about this that are unbelievable, frustrating and complete crap. That, in itself, is the part that absolutely proves to me Council was intentionally deceived by one member of staff.”
Deputy City Manager Wells also confirmed senior administration, not just the City Manager at the time, knew of the project cost.
“It’s like a bad onion. As you peel each layer it continually gets a stronger odour to it. The report exposes a process problem that we have had for quite some time,” said Councillor Frank Everitt.
“It’s the state of affairs we are in, no one likes it, but you can’t un-ring that damn bell either.”
The discussion prompted Councillor Cori Ramsay to formalize a motion for Council to receive a delegated authority use report for 2020 for all projects.
Ramsay also requested the report, passed unanimously, be presented to Council quarterly.
“I am curious if other things are going to come out of the woodwork on the previous City Manager’s delegated authority and what that looks like,” said Ramsay.
Sampson also introduced a second motion to continue the discussion on the issue in a closed meeting in order to seek legal advice.
“This issue is not going to get buried in close, I assure you,” added Skakun.
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“It’s not going into some closed graveyard where we never hear about it again.”
