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“It’s appalling,”: Councilor Skakun sounds off on huge cost overrun of George Street Parkade

To say, the cost overruns of the George Street Parkade have reached a boiling point with residents would be an understatement.

Yesterday (Monday), the Prince George Citizen publicized a chain of communication dating back to the summer of 2018 that included Mayor Lyn Hall and city officials where the parkade was in trouble and coming in within budget was not a possibility according to project managers.

Brian Skakun (Photo supplied by City of Prince George)

Last week, councilor Brian Skakun took City Manager Ian Wells to task on the parkade being over budget and demanded answers as to why council was not kept in the loop.

In total, the final cost of project came in at just over $34 million dollars – with the parkade equating to roughly $22.5 million of that, almost 11-million more than its original estimate (12.6 million).

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During an interview with MyPGNow.com, Skakun vented his frustration towards the lack of transparency by city staff.

“I am so disappointed and appalled that the original budget was for 12.5 (million) we okay-ed another four million for some infrastructure improvements in the area with some other streets downtown and then to find out the project was a total of 34-million dollars was astounding,”

“Had we been aware of it back then we would have had way better reporting and we would have hauled administration in front of council and said look, what is going on, and there would have been an opportunity to kill the project. It just leaves a bunch of unanswered questions.”

Back in August, Skakun put forward a motion asking for a report of the budget status of the project after city council was asked to approve the city’s annual report, which determined the total spending to date on the parkade was nearing 18-million dollars.

It was only last month when a full report was received by council from Wells who was the acting deputy city manager where the full cost of the overrun was revealed.

Skakun shudders to think how much further the project would have been swept under the rug had it not been for his efforts.

“In that meeting in December I had asked our administration if I had not made that report what kind of detail would we have had at council over that parkade and it would have been nothing, it would have been a one-lined item saying the total cost of the project with no explanation in the budget, it would have been so damning.”

Skakun noted the communication occurred a mere three months before the 2018 Civic Election, where the majority of council ended up being re-elected with the exceptions of Cori Ramsay and Kyle Sampson who are serving their first terms at City Hall.

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At the very least, Skakun thinks residents should have been given the opportunity to speak on the project.

“This came out in July and I think the election was starting in September or October of that year and this information should have been public. The community should have been able to see what the hell was going on at city hall and ask some questions to us during the election, unfortunately, we didn’t know and that’s terrible.”

“One thing for sure is that people in Prince George will not forget this and we are still going through extremely tough times with COVID, businesses are closing, people are going bankrupt and when they see in the news that this parkade was triple the cost, that’s appalling.”

When asked what the repercussions should be for Mayor Lyn Hall and those in city administration that knew of the issue in 2018, Skakun shot down any possibility a knee-jerk reaction should be made.

However, he did hint the provincial government should intervene and it will be tough for all councilors to move forward.

“I want to see a forensic audit, I want to see the possibility of the provincial government getting involved because they oversee the community charter that governs us, there are a number of things that we can do and we have to disclose as much information as we can. I know some of it takes place in closed door meetings but I am emerging on the side of transparency.”

“It’s going to be a tough bridge to cross to get us all working together again and to leave this behind us, it’s going to be nearly impossible in my opinion.”

He added councilor Ramsay made the same Freedom of Information Request as the Citizen and was granted the damning email chain, which was seen for the very first time by the majority of council.

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“I saw the chain of emails and I saw the discussion between administration on how they were going to fund this, they asked if there was money in the snow reserve. I was astounded that none of this had been given to us and it had to be forced out by a Freedom of Information Request by a local media outlet, that should never happen.”

“Re-elected officials are the ones representing the community and we should be given that information first and foremost and it’s quite shocking the media had to apply for an FOI to educate council even more on this matter. I am frustrated.”

“People expect transparency and it’s more important than ever that we give it to them,” added Skakun.

PG City Councillor Garth Frizzell attended a virtual meeting on Tuesday with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services as part of 2021 BC Budget Deliberations
(Photo supplied by Garth Frizzell)

While there have been members of the public asking for the removal of Mayor Hall and some of city administration staff, fellow councilor Garth Frizzell pointed out the appropriate process needs to take place in order to hold the right people accountable.

“I know it would feel better to jump and immediately hold people responsible but what we are doing right now is going through a very serious analysis of what went on and when it went and all of the councilors and Mayor Hall are all engaged in this.”

“It’s not about entertainment, this is a serious financial issue and it has to be dealt with properly.”

Frizzell was equally as shocked the Citizen and councilor Ramsay had to resort to such tactics such as the Freedom of Information route.

“It’s good to get that information, but really the council should have had that information. It’s a big gap on how things are done and that we were not made aware of this throughout the entire process.”

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“We spend a great deal and we take in a great deal of money because this is a big city and we’ve got a lot of responsibility, we have huge capital projects and it all hinges on a legally and culturally based system of trust we have. That has been broken and we have to find out where it broke.”

In November of 2019, the city’s finance and audit committee (which Frizzell is the chair of and also includes Hall, Ramsay, and councilor Frank Everitt) were briefed on all of the city’s projects including the parkade .

The committee was then told spending on the project at that time was a shade over 16-million dollars.

When Frizzell was asked about whether he should step down from the committee and for Hall to depart the Mayor’s chair before the conclusion of his second term, the longtime councilmen scoffed at the notion.

“I believe in Lyn Hall. The guy has done enormous work, which is beneficial to our community and to start off on step one being to make him resign and kick him out of the bus is not the right thing to do. We are all going to hold to account, this wasn’t a decision, solely made by Lyn Hall this was a breakdown in process.”

Fellow councilor Kyle Sampson also shared his thoughts on the matter, responding to calls from residents seeking an immediate overhaul of city staff.

He noted it’s key to undergo the whole ordeal with a fine-toothed comb before making rash decisions.

“There’s a lot of people calling for some people to be fired, resign or other actions to be taken and I don’t think any options should be off the table but I also want to say we shouldn’t be jumping into any options without doing our due diligence.”

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“There have been calls like fire everybody who knew, well, I think we need to dig in deep and find to what extent and was there intentional hiding and what was the situation there. Also, if we determine there are people who need to be addressed we also need to figure out the implications of their loss of employment with the city. ”

MyPGNow has reached out to Hall for comment, but as of this publication he has not responded.

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