Arts & Culture Pressure Sways Council

Mayor Ruttan, Councillors Brennan, Greves, Johnstone, 

Pattje and Anderson

Waste $160,000.00 On 25 Victoria Road

I am no longer surprised to see the loose manner in which this council will spend YOUR tax dollar. The recent decision to spend at least $160,000 on the old building at 25 Victoria Road is just the latest example of how poorly your tax dollar can be managed.

This building will require at the very least $800,000 to address identified 'issues' which I guarantee will be another project where the reasons for over runs will be explained at great length in years to come.

History Repeats Itself --- The Old Annex All Over Again

The really short version of how the guardians of the public purse handled tax dollars with the old annex, goes like this. They had an engineer inspect the building, told it was OK with a few upgrades. They spent a lot of money upgrading the building, and later were told by the same engineer that it was no longer up to a life-safety standard under the building code for seismic standards. They built an new annex and condemned the old building as doing the needed upgrades was deemed too expensive.

I predict the same thing is now happening again with the building at 25 Victoria Rd. This council on the advice of staff is ignoring two engineers reports which say this building would not withstand current seismic loading and it is an issue that should be addressed. City staff after doing a 'seismic screening', not a seismic assessment have declared the building is OK.

So, thanks to the above named members of council, the city taxpayer has begun shoveling money into what will definitely turn out to be just another money pit.

I tried to make this point with the Mayor recently, but was chastened for wasting valuable staff time with a horrendous number of technical questions about seismic standards.