Police board asks for accounting of issues with new headquarters

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This article was published 03/06/2016 (3423 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Police Board has asked the police service to keep track of problems in its new headquarters.

Coun. Scott Gillingham, board chairman, said they want police to keep separate lists of what are believed to be construction problems and which are changes made to the original plan.

“We want a list of what they are encountering from construction, including a leaky roof,” Gillingham said after Friday’s board meeting.

“These are the kind of ones which would be addressed by the contractor or subcontractor.”

Gillingham said other changes which have been made due to police requirements, including moving a wall, would have to be budgeted by police.

Gillingham said he doesn’t want to see construction repairs paid for out of the police budget.

“The board’s role is to allocate the police budget. We want to know what shouldn’t be in the budget.”

Police Chief Devon Clunis said the list will be compiled and they will report back to the police board.

Earlier this year, the total project costs had reached more than $214 million, including the cost to buy the Canada Post complex in 2009, have Caspian Construction renovate it, fix it after a rainstorm caused a flood inside, and put security barriers outside the building.

City council was told in 2009 it would only cost $135 million to buy the building and renovate it.

RCMP have been investigating the project since 2014, when it raided Caspian Construction’s offices but no charges have been laid and any allegations have not been proven in court.

But George Van Mackelbergh, vice president of the Winnipeg Police Association, said he can’t understand why the city bought a building that was being vacated by Canada Post.

“I’ve been around long enough to know that when the federal government leaves a building it either has to be demolished or there is asbestos there,” Van Mackelbergh said.

“The police shouldn’t be stuck with the cost. The landlord which bought the piece of crap should be.”

Van Mackelbergh said he worries that ultimately it will be reduced police services, including layoffs of officers, that ultimately pay the full costs of the overruns in the new building.

Deputy chief Art Stannard said the move into the new police headquarters should be completed by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, according to the first quarter financial report presented to the police board, the new headquarters is also costing the city extra money because of financing charges.

The report says the overall debt and finance costs for the city is predicted to be $7.8 million higher than last year. For the first quarter alone, the line item for debt and finance charges has jumped from $95,000 last year to $4 million this year, a 4,255 per cent increase.

The report says of the work in the building that still needs to be done, the police service is focusing first on the ones needed for “workplace, health and safety reasons”.

Clunis said a report outlining problems will soon come to the board and he doesn’t want to say much before then.

“It is a very safe building at this point,” he said, adding that many of the changes being made by police are similar to what someone would do when moving into a new home.

The financial report also says the provincial government has agreed to pay in perpetuity the eight members who operate AIR1 – subject to the results of an audit of the helicopter by the province – and the 13 officers who work in local schools. The helicopter cost the province $1.7 million in operational expenses in 2014.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca