Bridge probe enters murkier waters
The ongoing and seemingly endless probes into the Burgoyne Bridge project have taken on a mysterious air.
That’s what happens when investigative reports are kept under wraps while dark mutterings about possible, albeit unspecified, chicanery persist.
Suffice to say a woefully low initial, ballpark cost estimate (accepted and promoted largely because something was needed to fill out the application for federal/provincial infrastructure money), failure by public works staff during the detailed design stage to acknowledge to their political bosses that costs had the potential to rise significantly and then higher-than-anticipated construction bids resulted in the need for some serious face-saving actions.
But whether the recently completed forensic audit and upcoming police investigation will reveal some nefarious dealings that led to financial favours being bestowed or will simply pull back the curtains to show that a lot of private-sector and public-sector engineers like to mingle and play golf together remains to be seen.
Meantime, the waters have been further muddied by St. Catharines city council agreeing, at the request of Niagara Region, to conduct a forensic audit into “areas of interest” the city has in the bridge project. The Region will pick up the bill for the audit.
It’s been a long time since those areas of interest were discussed, so it might be worth revisiting them in an admittedly feeble attempt to shed some light on possible reasons for the forensic audit.
Basically, the city wanted some upgrades to ensure the new bridge would appropriately serve people with physical disabilities and also have some groovy landscaping elements to it.
The biggest chunk of the city’s $3.76-million share went towards the widening of the bridge’s sidewalks. The standard width for sidewalks in these instances is 1.8 metres. The city wanted them 2.4-metres wide to allow for a more pleasant stroll across the bridge, but also to better accommodate people in wheelchairs or on scooters.
The projected price tag for the extra 0.6 metres in width (that’s about two feet for the metrically challenged) was $4 million, a cost that would be subsidized one-third each by the feds and the province.
The city would be financially responsible for all civic enhancement/beautification elements, which more than four years ago were estimated to cost about a million bucks.
The work would include landscaping, architectural lighting, decorative poles and fixtures, trail system upgrades, plazas/ parkettes and heritage/story-telling features installed in those parkettes.
The other major expense was dealing with St. Joseph St., a glorified laneway under the bridge that needed to be reconfigured. The Region would pay for the reconfiguring; the city was on the hook to upgrade the road to municipal standards.
Long story short, the city figured it would be cheaper in the long run to buy the three houses on the street and demolish them rather than improve the road and service the houses.
The purchase and demolition cost more than $1 million. The Region agreed to pitch in $500,000 because that was the amount it had set aside to reconfigure the road, a task that was no longer necessary.
There you go. You’re up to speed again.
From what little information has been given out, it appears the forensic audit will attempt to retrieve electronic records from city hall that dealt with these matters from 2012 to 2014.
Any clearer about what the problem might be? Didn’t think so.
**** In a column earlier this week about the wisdom of selling the former Fairview pitch-and-putt golf course, I made reference to similar chatter five years ago.
At that time, Kithio Mwanzia, policy analyst for the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce, said at a city council budget meeting his group was in favour of selling the golf course in order to help build up St. Catharines’ civic project fund. I noted Mwanzia’s then-boss and now St. Catharines mayor Walter Sendzik was in the audience tweeting support for his deputy’s assertion.
In a Twitter exchange this week, Sendzik insisted to me that selling the golf course was neither his nor the chamber’s position. They just wanted it closed
The mayor said Mwanzia may have been “overstepping” when he talked about selling the Fairview property.
“The chamber’s position was sell unused assets like Merritton town hall — which I support. I’ve never advocated sale of parkland,” he tweeted.
Good to know.