BWG Special Council: Growth Related Capital Budget

By Meade Helman

The town staff brought forward the budget for engineering of a number of projects to support future growth. NOTE: The council had already approved obtaining $66 mil in funding from developers that, if the employment lands weren’t populated, would require the town to reimburse the developers in 12 years. This was done through DC charges. Projects included the southern bypass, the 5^th Line freeway interchange, sewers and water to Bond head and the employment lands. Some of the Q & A went like this:

·        Councillor LeDuc: How much land will be acquired? Ans: We don’t know.

·        Councillor Dykie: What do you project the cost of land acquisition will be? ANS: We don’t know.

·         Deputy Mayor Keffer: The EA says that the fill will have to sit for 3.5 years before you can build on it and yet you are projecting a Fall 2015 completion date? How is that? Ans: We think the EA is wrong and are doing additional cores to verify.

·        Councillor Hordyk: Will sewers be made available to the existing residents in Bond Head and what will it cost. Ans: Council hasn’t discussed that as yet. NOTE: Green Valley residents were told that the cost of tying in would be $30,000 and that didn’t include piping to the house or any changes in the house.

·        Councillor Lamb: There is a cap on the amount we will receive from both the Province and the county there is a cap on what the developers will contribute. What happens to cost overruns? Ans. There is no plan. We will have to deal with that if it happens. The developers don’t have a bottomless fund of money to dip into.

We also heard a lot of maybes, and not-sures but in the end, Only Deputy Mayor Keffer and Councillor Lamb voted against the proposals. (Councillor Simpson was absent.) Both Councillor Crake and Councillor Hordyk expressed strong support.

EDITORIAL COMMENT: At the end of 2012 we were told that the Dissette widening project came in at $17mil $4mil over the pre-construction estimate of $14mil. Then in early in 2013 we heard that the actual cost was $34mil. $17 mil over the reported amount. No one knew how this happened. Neither council or staff seemed to know how this could happen.

I think they went into Dissette the same way we are going into a $54 mil freeway interchange… no one really knows, but we will go forward because it is “good for the town”. When the true Dissette cost was reported, Councillors Crake and Hordyk and Mayor White said that we should look forward, not back and consider it a “lesson learned”.

Apparently there was no lesson learned,  and like Dissette, the only ones that will be held accountable are the taxpayers.