Municipal officials will not be bringing in a third-party consultant to look into the costs of moving three municipal facilities, including the civic centre, to the downtown Chatham centre.
At their meeting Monday night, Chatham-Kent council members rejected a motion to bring in a third-party consultant to verify construction and project costs for the proposed move of a number of municipal buildings into the former Sears building in downtown Chatham.
Councillor Alysson Storey said she brought in the motion to bring in open and transparent financial accountability of a proposal which includes moving city hall, the Chatham Library, and museum into the now vacant Sears store in the Downtown Chatham Centre. Her motion failed by a 12-6 vote. It was estimated that a third-party consultant could cost between $50-75,000.
Storey said her motion intended to get regular updates on the project, as well as help council make informed decisions and make sure taxpayer money is spent wisely.
Administration said a third-party consultant would be redundant by duplicating the work of the other consultants, considering there is already an architectural consultant and a project management consultant working on the project that is developing and reviewing cost estimates.
Edward Soldo, Chatham-Kent’s general manager of infrastructure and engineering services, said there will be three times when staff will be coming back to council with costs; a concept design cost estimate, an updated more detailed cost design and finally a tender. Soldo said he didn’t recommend hiring a third-party consultant, as he did not see a need for one. He said it’s not the best practice for a tender build.
Council also voted against having administration report back monthly with financial accounting, project updates, and meeting minutes of the staff project team and stakeholder engagement group and posted on the municipal website. It failed in a 9-9 vote.
Council did approve having all funding sources required to pay for the project’s options come back to council in advance of voting on the next steps of the project.
