New City Hall Annex

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$16,000,000 Annex Underway

Wasting no time getting shovels into the ground the company awarded the $12 million+ contract to build a new annex instead of upgrading the existing, has begun site preparation work.

This single project calls to question the rational and critical thinking of all members of council and senior city staff. Can you imagine awarding a $12,000,000.00 contract without ever having gone to public tender? However, that is exactly what this city council and city manager Mr, Kenning think is a demonstration of best practice and due diligence when it comes to spending your tax dollar.

At yesterdays FPCOW meeting council debated whether to award the contract for auditing city accounts to an out of town company who had submitted the lowest of four bids for the contract. There were four bids considered ranging from $38,000 - $46,000 and the criteria for accepting the out of town bid was the considerable saving of $8,000.00.

Rationale?

Compare putting to tender a contract of less than $120,000 so you are certain Nanaimo tax dollars are being well spent, while at the same time awarding a $12 million contract without having even one other tendered bid for the same building??

I have tried to get information about the process that saw Windley contracting being awarded this contract without going to tender, but the whole process including which councilors supported this decision is being firmly hidden from public scrutiny under the often abused in camera shroud. This is a tactic employed by elected and unelected officals when they don't want the public to know what they are doing.

Perhaps during the upcoming civic election, this will become an issue that candidates will have to explain if they expect to be re-elected. Remember leaving the current annex as it is would mean no tax increases for 5 years and renovating the exisiting annex would mean no tax increase for 4 years, but building this new annex means a tax increase of at least 21% over the next five years.