Sturgeon County Council made a difficult decision last week when it voted to put the brakes on its multi-million dollar county campus project.
Mayor Tom Flynn was right when he acknowledged both the need for the project, as well as the opposition. In the end he voted for hitting pause when he said: “I think we need to slow this down.”
On Feb. 14 county council voted 5-1 to halt work on the detailed design for the first phase of the project. The decision came after more than 200 taxpayers came to a special council meeting Feb. 6. The citizen group that called for the meeting – SUREAL (Sturgeon United Residents for Effective Accountable Leadership) – asked council to stop the campus, pending a feasibility study.
The amount of the county campus project has never been firmly nailed down, and perhaps ratepayers were right to be fearful of what this project would mean to their taxes over the long haul. Estimates have pegged the first phase in the $15.6 million range with the whole project in the $50 to $61 million range.
Coun. Jerry Kaup said council went through a similar controversy back when it built its current county office. As a result of the public pressure, council scaled back the size of the project by one-third and, he says, the county is paying for that decision now.
The rationale for the county campus is not a secret. The county is growing and with it the need for more space for its staff and equipment. County services and staff are now spread over nine properties. A report in 2012, available on the county’s website, said the county could run out of space as early as 2021.
In 2015 the county purchased land to begin the project. The campus would eliminate the need for leased space, which one estimate said would save the county $11.6 million over 20 years.
While these might be a compelling reasons to support the building of the campus, more work needs to be done by the county to educate ratepayers on its merits.
If the project is delayed a year or more, what are the cost projections in terms of labour, materials and interest rates compared to building the campus this year? If building the campus makes economic sense, the project should stand on its own merits.
Flynn hit the mark when he stated there will have to be a much longer consultation process with the public. Ratepayers need to be convinced firstly that the project is needed, and if it is, that it will be built making the most efficient use of their money.
