Council approves MFA Borrowing plan for McBride Street work, hears of additional cost over runs

The scene on McBride from earlier this summer as part of the
major infrastructure work required  

The recently completed work on the underground water infrastructure on McBride street appears to be the unwanted project that keeps on taking cash from the city ...

Monday's City Council saw the council membership approve a request to finance the project through borrowing from the Municipal Finance Authority,  the Chief Financial Officer, Corinne Bomben outlined the process ahead for the City through a report to council.

Previous to her report, as part of the monthly variance report, Ms. Bomben had alerted Council to some additional cost to the McBride street work.

"As the community is aware the McBride water repair was completed in October.  We wanted to communicate that it is our expectation that the repair costs will exceed budget by approximately 15 percent, in part due to the high cost of aggregate and the additional engineering and geotechnical work necessary given the road is a highway"

Towards her main focus on the McBride project the CFO outlined how the repayment program for the short term loan would work.

The approval will see the City put payments of $200,000 per year towards the $850,000 loan for project, the repayment to be provided over a period of five years  through dividends from the city owned subsidiary of Prince Rupert Legacy.

Councillor Teri Forster followed up on the money themes and asked about the additional costs to the project and how that fifteen percent overage would be financed, in reply the CFO outlined how the city would pay those bills.

"No, as is outlined in my report, what would financing the overage, was projects that were not actually  undertaken this year and were to be funded out of the water project" -- CFO Corinne Bomben

Councillor Cunningham asked towards what the total final cost of the project had come to.

"It was expected to be about a million dollars, that's what our budget amendment was and then saying that it's expected to be approximately 15 percent higher, so 1.15 million"  -- CFO Corinne Bomben

The bright yellow bollards that line the east side of McBride also made for some discussion at Monday's session, that in reply to a question from Councillor Randhawa.

"The posts are steel bollards that were put into the curb-line along McBride, they were the cheapest option associated with ensuring that we will not have any extra weight on that sidewalk. 

That sidewalk is a cantilevered sidewalk that is very old, underneath is a stacked rock retaining wall that has only been approved to stay in place  to have pedestrian light weight on it.

To get the sign off from the structural engineer we had to  put something in place, there's a couple of other options  ... that was the cheapest option."

Mr. Pucci noted that in some time in the future the city would have to do a whole corridor analysis and redoing the corridor inn the future.

We had more notes on the addition to the street earlier this month.

The reviews begin at the one hour, one minute mark of Monday's Council Session. Mr. Pucci's bollard update starts at the one hour twenty six minute mark.

More notes on Monday's Council session can be explored through our Council Timeline.

A look at the past notes of the infrastructure project can be found from our archive page.