'Elephant in the room': Council airs frustrations with former West Kelowna senior staff over new city hall

Photo: Kathy Michaels

Decisions made by past members of West Kelowna?s ?senior management? team were openly scrutinized Thursday in budget talks.

Decisions made by past members of West Kelowna’s senior management team were openly scrutinized Thursday in budget talks.

Construction of the $22.79 million City Hall and, more particularly, upgrades needed to make it functional prompted the conversation.

The two upgrades for council chambers and the building's parking area came at a cost of $115,000 and $85,000 respectively, and council supported the changes because they were deemed necessary.

Notably, the acoustics in council chambers are so poor that residents who make their way to meetings can’t actually hear what’s being said.

These issues, however, should have been discussed long before this budget, according to those deliberating.

“It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room,” Coun. Rick deJong said, raising the issue.

“We're sitting in a beautiful new city hall, and yet we're looking at a brand new building that's going to require $195,000 more money over and above the budget — quite frankly, when I read those numbers, particularly with the acoustics in this chamber, I was not happy.”

The councillor said there was “oversight that should not have been missed” with all the city hall design work.

Particularly galling, according to deJong, was the acoustic issue, because the connected library was constructed with that issue top of mind.

“Clearly, they thought about it. Why didn't we?” he said.

de Jong said senior managers who made decisions on the construction of the building, as well as budget items that did and did not get included, are not around today.

“When we are done, I look forward to a lesson learned exercise, because in my mind, this is a good example of a lot of lessons that need to be learned and what can be done differently on projects of this nature,” he said.

He wasn’t alone in his critique of decisions and past decision makers.

Coun. Stephen Johnston said that it’s frustrating “former staff … aren't here to answer for some of these questions.”

“I do believe all the way along, council was intentionally left out of key conversations where valuable engineering decisions were made without us,” Johnston said.

“We’re staring down the barrel of some, I think, poor decisions, and some of that is reflected here tonight or this afternoon. We've got another $277,000 (to replace audio and visual equipment) coming later in the budget, so we're on near half a million of extra expenses towards City Hall, and they do need to be done.”

Council approved the expenditures. The acoustic upgrades and parking lot expansion design will be funded through the city’s capital reserves.

Originally budgeted at $18 million, the new city hall, which opened in May, came in well over budget at $22.79 million. Construction delays and supply disruptions caused the project to be stretched out over several months.

Thursday marked the first round of the budget, which has a 7.43 per cent tax increase. The average West Kelowna home worth $960,000 will pay an additional $194.

3.01 per cent of that tax increase is going to pay for inflation and other contractual increases. Two per cent will go towards road rehabilitation and infrastructure reserves.

1.91 per cent will fund an additional 8.2 staff positions to improve application times, maintain community facility operations and provide seven-day-a-week community support coverage downtown.

2.39 per cent of the increase will fund two new police officers, new firefighter positions and increased transit security at the Boucherie and Westbank Transit Exchanges.

Council gave the budget first reading and will consider the community's input before providing final approval in the spring.