Who Watches Nanaimo Spending??

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An Example Of How YOUR Tax Dollar$ Are Spent

At the City of Nanaimo council meeting on January 23, 2012 on staff's recommendation council approved awarding a contract to MWH Canada Inc for preliminary engineering services for South Fork II Dam. The value of the contracted amount is $460,000.00.

Sounds like a reasonable amount as soon as you say 'engineering services' which we all know are in a stratosphere of their own.

Now for the part that is a prime example of why city hall will never be serious about controlling spending. In addition to the agreed amount of $460,000, city staff recommended that council approve another $100,000 for a contingency should it be necessary to do other investigations. In other words, they had a contractor agree to do preliminary engineering work within established parameters and then have volunteered to give them another $100,000 just in case they may need more money to do the study!!

That would be akin to me or you hiring a contractor to give me a price to build a garage, and after getting a price, offer to pay the contractor another 20% if they thought they needed to!!

Only Councilors Bestwick, Kipp and McKay were opposed to the $100,000 contingency, with the balance of council thinking it was a sound financial decision.

Just wait until this same bunch starts awarding the $65+ million contract to build the new filtration plant.... let's see $65 million plus another 20% contingency just for good measure......