Vernon council “frustrated” with Lakeview Pool cost overruns

Upon receiving the report, Councillor Brian Quiring expressed his displeasure with the process.

“Some of these escalation costs seem a little bit high to me. I know a little bit about the business, and I’m frustrated, I’m very frustrated,” Quiring said at Monday’s meeting.

“When there’s delay claims, the client shouldn’t always be responsible for having to pay it all.”

Quiring added the city had originally estimated the pool revitalization would cost $3.3-million, and while he acknowledged there were some issues with geotechnical and Interior Health assessments, these additional costs mean the project will cost closer to $4.8-million.

“There’s nothing we can do about it except to continue to pay the bills,” Quiring noted.

“It’s not fair to the taxpayer, it’s not fair to the city.”

Councillor Kari Gares added she was also frustrated with the cost overruns.

Included in the budget shortfalls were $45,000 for landscaping, irrigation, planting and furniture, which Gares pointed to at Monday’s meeting. While she said those prices should “have already been settled,” Stan Mitchell, Vernon’s Manager of Recreation Facilities, said that increase was a result of the city coming up with cost estimates for the items two years prior, but we’re not contracted out until much more recently.

Councillor Teresa Durning expressed disappointment in the process, saying she was “stressed about [council’s] accountability to the taxpayers and how we’re going to explain that and how we’re going to explain it after today because we’re being pigeonholed into rubber stamping this in order to get the pool ready.”

The three councillors all asked for a “post mortem” review once the project is complete.

“I think council should have an opportunity to maybe dig a little bit deeper so that as we venture into other projects that are similarly designed, that maybe we can learn from the past to avoid these mistakes in the future, because $262,000 is a lot of money for a 10 week delay and the public, obviously is concerned about it, and I’m concerned about it,” Gares said.

Council voted unanimously in providing up to $300,000 from the Recreation Major Maintenance Reserve to cover the budget shortfall, as well as having staff come back with an assessment of the procurement process at a later date.

The project is still scheduled to be completed in time to open the new ‘Peanut Pool’ by June 28.

Speaking with Vernon Matters following Monday’s meeting, Mayor Victor Cumming expressed disappointment with the costly delay.

“That’s just one of those difficult things where a project has a timeframe and a plan, and then you start to get a number of different agencies weighing in and asking for changes, both in the design as well as things that seem to have been approved for construction that they want to have adjusted,” Cumming said.

“It just plays havoc with timing, and as time goes past the contract period, then the city is responsible for keeping those management systems and physical facilities in place until we get this finished. So yes, we’re stuck with a bill we’d rather not have, and yes, this is a problem.”

Cumming added that while concerned about the procurement process and how it didn’t work as planned, he was certain that the city would still get value out of the Peanut Pool when it is open and operational.

He added the public can be reassured that a different process will be used for the Active Living Centre to avoid any similar overruns with that project.

“With the Active Living Centre we’ve been absolutely clear we are not going to be using that process to avoid exactly what happened [at the Lakeview wading pool],” the mayor said.

He noted city staff would review the delay, saying the city has roughly $29-million in capital projects planned for the year, and it’s important to know how this process resulted in such a large budget shortfall.

by Liam Verster

Vernon council “frustrated” with Lakeview Pool cost overruns

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