Prince George City Council has voted against a notice of motion on releasing a fully unredacted report from 2023 around the CN Centre envelope renewal project.
At tonight’s (Monday) meeting, City Council was presented with a notice of motion from Councillors Trudy Klassen and Brian Skakun.
The motion would have directed city staff to released a fully unredacted version of the CN Centre Targeted Facility Condition Assessment Report from October 2023, including all opinions of probable cost, cost thresholds, detailed cost estimates, and any supporting appendices or spreadsheets that were redacted in the version circulated to Council and published on the City website.
“I know that I’ve been hearing from members of the public wanting, wondering why Section 2.4 was redacted, and just a few of the other comments that are in the feasibility report that just say it was high level review, and no destructive testing has taken place, and so I think we unredact whatever we possibly can in this report,” Klassen said.
Director of Civic Facilities Andy Beesley said the redacted piece was a chart showing a breakdown of specific costs for specific parts of the job being done.
“There’s one tiny little box that was also redacted that just had a high level overall construction budget piece that was standalone,” Beesley explained.
“There hasn’t been anything else that was redacted, we actually left everything else in, as far as I know.”
Director of Finance and IT Services Kris Dalio used a kitchen renovation for a homeowner as an example of why parts are redacted.
“You’ve sort of worked it all out and you’re going to spend about $100,000,” he said.
“Imagine that every bidder knew you had $100,000, we have to disclose our full budget, like our total budge, sorry. For some reason all the bidders know, so now would you, as that homeowner, would you tell each individual contractor that you needed, let’s say the cabinetmaker, exactly how much you set aside for cabinets, or would you say, look, I have $100,000, but I still got to pay all these other guys, so just looking for the best price you can get me. It’s that principle under which the Freedom of Information Act lets us redact these details.”
Dalio said it would put the City at a disadvantage in procurement if every single line was detailed out to the bidding environment.
“We’re trying to foster an environment where we’re encouraging all of the vendors to give us their most competitive pricing and fine the true market value of what work we’re looking for,” he explained.
“That’s the reason for the redaction.”
Mayor Simon Yu said this current Council hasn’t gone through a lot of AAP processes, and asked Dalio if he felt the public was informed enough to make a decision on the project.
“The concept is, we have a CN Centre, it was approved in the mid-90s, and this is our job to keep it going until end of life,” he explained.
“If we were doing a brand new facility, if this CN Centre had reached it’s full end of life and we were doing a brand new facility to replace it, that would be a great time for a referendum, check in with the public, see if this is a service they want to continue going forward, but we already have the asset, we already have the infrastructure, this is about getting it to end of life.”
Dalio added the City has experts who’ve quantified the work and figured out what is needed to keep the building running.
“Does it help the public to know each individual line item to make that vote? I don’t know if every member of the public would agree with that or not, but I believe there’s enough information there,” Dalio said.
Councillor Skakun said the goal was to be as transparent as possible.
“Let’s put out what work is going to be there, and I know where Mr. Dalio is coming from as far as the kitchen, but in my opinion the difference is it’s the taxpayers that are funding the work, not just a private homeowner,” he said.
“All we wanted was just to be more transparent, put the full report out there, and if it’s only a spreadsheet and one paragraph, then, in our opinion, it should’ve been in there to start with.”
Councillor Cori Ramsay asked if those figures would be released at the conclusion of the project. Beesley responded, saying they would come after the procurement process.
“I understand where my colleagues are coming from and wanting to share that information transparently so that taxpayers can consider if they’re going to support or reject this project through the AAP,” Ramsay said.
“My concern is that we have a duty to spend these financial dollars wisely, and my concern is that if we reveal too much information, we’re not going to get a good deal for taxpayers. There’s some confidential information here that is wrapped up in that budgetary number that if we reveal this information will, I think, cost the taxpayers more money in the end.”
Councillor Garth Frizzell put forward a motion to postpone the vote on Klassen’s motion until after the procurement process.
Frizzell’s motion to postpone Klassen’s motion until after the procurement process was defeated with a 4-4 vote. (Councillor Tim Bennett was absent from the meeting.
Councillor Kyle Sampson said it’s Council’s responsibility to protect taxpayers’ interests.
“I don’t believe that sharing this publicly at this point, as has been discussed by my colleagues and explained again by staff, which has previously been explained by staff, is in the best interest of the taxpayer, so I’m not going to support this,” he said.
Klassen’s motion was eventually defeated, with Klassen, Skakun, and Yu voting in favour.
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