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| The future new home for the City of Prince Rupert Public Works Department. Plans to move forward with the project are now posted on the BC Bid website |
The path forward for the relocation of the City's Public Works staff from Wantage Road to Saskatoon and Portage is the subject of the latest call for proposals from the City of Prince Rupert through the BC bid program.
The overview of the project from the BC Bid submission outlines the history of the Wantage Road site and the reason for the planned move into the new facility.
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| The area that one day will be a second Public Works Yard at the old McCarthy GM location on Portage Road |
The scope of the work for the 1.6 million dollar project included construction, demolition an other elements with the City looking to enter into a Construction Management for Services agreement with the successful proponent.
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The timeline towards the project also provides a glimpse towards the target date for completion of the project, with the substantial amount of work to be completed by February 1, 2024
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The plans for the old MacCarthy GM location were first outlined to the community in March of 2022.
The future for the site gas also the subject of note for the City of Prince Rupert Annual report and the recent Capital Budget rollout during the City's budget considerations.
The city hosted an optional information meeting towards the RFP on July 12th, the deadline for proponents to submit their proposals is 2PM on August 1st.
The full Call for proposals can be reviewed from the BC Bid website.
More notes on the history of the plans for Public Works can be explored from our archive page.
Our archive of past Civic calls for Bids and Tenders can be reviewed here.
I don’t understand why the city didn’t rebuild on their Wantage property, on land they already own. It appears to be a total waste of taxpayers money leasing a building for five years that was not ready for use and has been empty now for nearly a year with wasted lease payments. At the end of five years the city has option to purchase this property, if they do not, the lease payments will have been a total waste of money, and they will still have to build new facilities. This means the city will be forced to buy leased property at a price who knows what to save face with taxpayers. The 1.6 million dollars will never cover this blunder…..
ReplyDeleteThe image above clearly states “The anticipated costs for the project are being covered by a dividend from Prince Rupert Legacy Inc.”
Deletehttps://www.princerupert.ca/sites/default/files/finance/legacy/Legacy%20Update%20-%202022%20-%20Final.pdf
And should that make a difference? Legacy dividends are not some sort of gift, it's still City money, just from a different account.
DeletePrince Rupert taxpayers just got a huge tax increase along with the possibility of another utility bill increase on top of the increase last year.
ReplyDeleteLegacy money is Prince Rupert taxpayers money. No amount of spin will make it true this is not being funded by the taxpayers of Prince Rupert. Please stop using the Legacy Fund as the administrations slush fund.
Legacy is not a slush fund, it’s basically a capital improvement fund.
DeleteMoney comes in from leasing Watson Islands and is used on physical infrastructure.
It’s a good model so long as the city does not spend it on subsidizing operations which will ultimately result in only delaying future tax increases.
And yes it is money that is ultimately accountable to taxpayers since Watson is (unwillingly) owned by taxpayers
The Legacy Fund has been used to pay for bonuses for the administration. I think the previous mayor's bonuses came from the Legacy Fund for seven years. That is slush fund use.
ReplyDeleteIf it is a capital improvement fund why don't we use it to fix the stairway to Forth West rather than rob from the park's money.
I believe what you are referring to is that from 2015 to 2018 the five year financial plan provided for annual $1.3 million contributions from Legacy called "Injection for Economic Growth Project". The 2018 'injection' was reduced to $600,000. Those were operating expenses, not contributions to capital projects and purchases, which were separate line items each year.
DeleteThe cost of a full-time mayor and 'retention' top-ups for senior management apparently came from the Legacy 'injections'. The City Manager's pay went from $191,298 in 2014 to $254,797 in 2015.
After 2018, when the 'project' apparently ended, the mayor remained full-time, and the Manager's total remuneration (excluding expenses) increased slightly from $265,665 in 2018 to $270,553 in 2019. These numbers come from the Statements of Financial Information.
Please provide proof for your first “I think” claims.
DeleteYour last point is a valid question
From the previous mayor Jul. 16
DeleteIn the spring of 2015, City Council passed a resolution to create a new Planning for Major Projects budget to ensure the City has capacity to address the speculative growth within the City of Prince Rupert and the region, without impacting the taxpayers. The Planning for Major Projects Budget is $1.3 million per year for a four year period (2015-2019), funded from the proceeds of a lease option with WCC LNG for Lot 444 through Prince Rupert Legacy fund. With the potential LNG facilities being proposed for the area comes tremendous constraints being placed on City staff to manage our daily priorities along with the longer term planning required for community success in the face of proposed growth.
As such, Council identified various needs in preparing for unprecedented growth which include a requirement for additional staffing, specifically around planning and engineering. Within this decision was the installation of a four year ‘sunset’ clause which will retire the Planning for Major Projects Budget should there be no confirmed LNG activity, thereby returning staff support to their previous levels. The formal term for this action is called a temporary market adjustment, meant to act as a recruitment and retention tool during a time of significant competition for talented workers. Recognizing the possibility that interest from LNG and other major industries may decline, City Council intentionally set an expiry date on the wage increases that allows us to return to ‘business as usual’, with benefits accrued from the planning and engineering work.
The city council "set an expiry date on the wage increases", but later decided to continue the increases, and also decided that mayor's position would continue to be full-time, rather than returning to "business as usual" before the "injection" from Legacy corp.
Delete