The Johnson Street Bridge replacement has become the most expensive and controversial building project in Victoria’s history. It deserves close examination by council members and voters, but seeing wrongdoing in every decision is taking public scrutiny too far.
The newest revelation in the bridge saga comes from another of many freedom-of-information requests. A memo to the bridge-project team from acting assistant director of finance Troy Restell in August 2011 warned that the cost of the construction was rising by $5.2 million and advised that councillors should be told.
At that time, the budget for the project was $77 million. Restell’s note listed additional costs including $600,000 for permits, $1.5 million in fees to MMM Group, the construction management firm, $828,000 for moving Telus utility ducts, $1 million for procurement assistance and $600,000 for insurance.
Of the $5.2 million, $3.1 million related to construction and design, while $2.1 million was for city costs such as staff work, audits and insurance that had to be accounted as part of the project costs. It brought the total to $82.2 million.
The red flag goes up because city manager Gail Stephens told council on Oct. 6, 2011 — a month and a half after Restell’s memo — that the project was on budget. The meeting was only a month before the civic election, when cost overruns in the bridge could have been an election issue.
It was not until March 2012 that council was told the actual costs were even higher: $92.8 million.
Shocked members of city council reluctantly approved the budget. A fixed-price contract has since been signed that is supposed to keep the cost from rising any higher.
A group of city residents wrote to Mayor Dean Fortin this week demanding a public inquiry into whether the manager misled councillors in her remarks in October.
In response, Stephens issued a statement saying: “Based on the preliminary information I had received as of October 2011, I believed the project was within the approved budget.”
She said all the financial information had to be tested and confirmed before it went to council. She also said that elections play no part in staff decisions. Fortin said he sees no need for an inquiry.
Stephens’s unequivocal statement to council in October is certainly cause for concern. Although Stephens did not have final numbers, Restell’s memo makes it clear that there was good reason to believe the project was over-budget. Council deserved to know that the $77-million figure was in question.
Council and staff must do a balancing act when it comes to information. There is a danger in inundating councillors with too much information, especially if it is incomplete.
However, they need to be kept informed of important trends that will affect their decision-making. The probability that the bridge would run over budget was such a trend.
Coun. Geoff Young suggested Wednesday that if he had had that information, he might have pushed harder for consideration of alternatives for the bridge.
City staff have to be diligent in presenting reliable information to council, and their desire to confirm the facts is commendable, but in a project as large and complex as the Johnson Street Bridge, councillors must be kept up to speed so they are not surprised by something as big as a $15.8-million cost overrun.
It’s up to councillors to tell staff what kind of information they want and how often they want it. They can use this incident to work out that policy.
