Councillor Ellen Tzakis was the lone vote against increasing the construction budget for the Creston Emergency Services Building (CESB) to $7 million.
However, as of March 23rd, 2021, Town staff will move forward in conjunction with Chandos Construction and advisement from the Technical Building Advisory Committee (TBAC).
For more on the technical aspects and timeline of the project, see: CRESTON EMERGENCY SERVICES BUILDING BUDGET INCREASED TO $7 MILLION.
‘The total project cost will be $8,148,055,” Director of Finance and Corporate Services Steffan Klassen told Council in the Special Committee of the Whole meeting prior to the vote. “We’re using $1,139,000 in reserves and surplus. As you can see, that amount is what we spent year-to-date. We started taxing in 2019 and we’re using $311,000 of taxation from 2019, 2020, 2021 towards the project because the debt payments will not start until 2022.”
Klassen added that there will be no further taxation in future years for the CESB.
2020 brought with it a global pandemic, and subsequently increased costs for materials and labour. It also brought a federally-funded $1,648,000 Covid Recovery Grant to be used at the Town’s discretion. $1 million of that money has since been earmarked for the CESB.
Project costs and funding sources may be viewed below.
Klassen also revised the Five Year Finacial Plan to include the increased CESB project’s cost to Council. It may be viewed in full via this link.
As of December 31st, 2019, the Town’s total reserves including general, water and sewer surplus amounted to $9,287,178. It increased to $11,294,339 in 2020.
By December 31st, 2021, Klassen projects Town reserves will shrink to $10,068,442, and again to $9,769,308 the following year. The inflow of reserve funds will once again outweigh the outflow in 2023, and by the end of 2025 reserves are projected to sit at $12,877,061.
The proposed Town of Creston budget is scheduled to be publicly shared on April 13th and adopted by April 27th of this year.
Creston’s Town Council meeting was marked with criticism by Keith Goforth who ran for Area B Director in the 2018 municipal election. His stance on an “affordable fire hall” ran contrary to the existing plans from Council at that time.
“Has Council, have you considered waiting until this pandemic is more sound or over before pursuing the building of the fire hall?” Goforth asked Council and Mayor Ron Toyota from the Webex virtual gallery.
Chief Administrative Officer Mike Moore answered, “We had [TBAC member] Bruce McFarlane who has tremendous experience in construction as well as Chandos both indicate that, by waiting, prices would not come down and that they didn’t have any historical data to support that. In fact, they thought the longer that was waited, it would likely just continue to increase.”
Goforth continued, “If it starts to go over-budget, will you put a hold on it? What will transpire should the cost escalate and get carried away?”
Mayor Toyota responded, “You’re asking questions, Keith, that are not answerable at this time. We’re moving forward with this and the intent is that the councillor that resigned, former councillor Unruh, will be back here next year and she can do the champagne breaking ceremony.”
Goforth presented Council with a follow-up question.
“Has there been much consideration regarding all of the people who are out of work and the rising price of fuel and the higher costs? Like the price of power, 4.3% interest January first on the residents who are going to be paying these taxes that are going to be taken out of these funds. A lot of people are struggling right now and maybe this isn’t the best time to pursue this extra borrowing and extra spending?”
“The best time to spend this?” Councillor Jim Elford interjected, “We would have had this fire hall built and in operation two or three years ago. I would be afraid to be in your shoes because if the public figures out that yourself and your group were the actual cause of this increase, you could be in hot water.”
Mayor Toyota promptly ended the discussion, disallowing further comments from Goforth or from Council on the matter.
In regards to the sudden departure of Councillor Karen Unruh, it was announced earlier during Council that she had handed in her letter of resignation for personal reasons and would be leaving April 1st.
“My regret is that the fire hall did not get built on time and on budget. If we had done it the way it was planned and worked so hard for it would be built and in place under budget, I’m positive of that,” said Unruh. “I do plan on coming back for the opening.”