During last Monday night’s City Council meeting , the contract for the site remediation of the developer’s property came up for discussion and ultimately, a vote. To placate Council as well as the general public worried about extra costs, Ms Dugmore stated the money will come from savings realized on other tenders that came under budget. The city plans to stick to its original $47.5 million budget. Thunder Bay has about $1.13 million in unallocated funding for the project.
Also, under questioning, Ms. Dugmore rattled of several reasons why she could not know during the budget deliberations prior to February 08, 2010, that the site remediation was going to end up cost 1.1M. A change in the scope of development was the biggest reason.
So Ms. Dugmore is asking us to believe that savings from Waterfront Development tenders that came in under City estimates alone added up to almost exactly the cost of the site remediation? Savings that Ms. Dugmore had no way of knowing would be available added up to a price for site remediation that Ms. Dugmore could not foresee almost to the exact dollar? Ms. Dugmore is telling us that this is merely a coincidence? Really? Ms. Dugmore is asking us to believe that she left the payment for work that is required under the agreement signed with the developer completely up to chance? Work that is key to the entire private portion of the development moving ahead up to chance?
I don’t believe her and neither should you.
