{"id":24120,"date":"2019-06-28T11:55:49","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T15:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24120"},"modified":"2019-06-28T11:55:59","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T15:55:59","slug":"getting-things-done-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/getting-things-done-15\/","title":{"rendered":"GETTING THINGS DONE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Mayor Tom Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This past week at General\nCommittee, Council addressed the ongoing issue of the Skateboard park over at\nthe AFLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone that has followed the\nissue of the renovations and upgrades that started during the end of the\n2010-2014 term and finished at the beginning of last term are fully aware that\nthere were some serious issues with the construction of that facility. The\nproject was not only delayed but there were multiple deficiencies and attendant\nlegal issues as a consequence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The skateboard park was,\nunfortunately, part of a mismanaged project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last term, we \u2013 Council \u2013\nworked hard to ensure that this type of project mismanagement would not happen\nagain. First, I brought forward a motion to ensure that, moving forward,\nliquidated damages (penalty clause) are part of every contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is to ensure that there\nare penalties should a contractor not fulfill the contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, our new CAO was\nbrought on board and organizational changes made to ensure that future projects\nwould not face the same management issues. As part of the organizational\nchanges, our new Director of Finance will be looking to make some changes to\nour procurement processes – as awarding contracts to the lowest bidder is not\nalways the most cost-effective way to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, we set a policy to have\na project manager in place for all future capital projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this mean that there will\nnever be an issue with a future project? No. \nUnforeseen issues can and do arise in any project. However, we \u2013 Council\nand staff \u2013 have put measures in place to limit the Town\u2019s \u2013 and taxpayers\u2019 \u2013\nexposure to the risks that come from the deficiencies that arise due to\nmismanaged projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the bigger question then\nis, where does that leave the skate park? Well, the issues with the skate park\nbegan with a few concrete cracks (nothing serious). These cracks were\nidentified and attended to. What no one knew about was what lay beneath the\nsurface. After repeated attempts to fix the cracks, staff realized it was more\nthan just expansion and contraction cracks. A hydrological test was done and it\nwas found that the sub flooring, gravel and prep work before the pouring was\nnot done properly or missing altogether. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the Town is facing $600K\nin costs to fix the skateboard park!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I can speak for\neveryone when I say we are all very angry about the current situation. Council\nhas asked the Town solicitor to look into what if anything can be done to\nrecover our costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what are our options\nmoving forward? Well, we have two options: repair a Town amenity that is highly\nused by residents, or we could shut it down and not move forward in providing\nthis service for our residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My choice is to move forward\nwith providing this in-demand service, proceed to take whatever steps possible\nto recover costs incurred and know that moving forward we have processes in\nplace to mitigate the impacts of any future occurrences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every member of Council works\nto ensure that taxpayer money is spent responsibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are building on the hard\nwork of our previous council that put a number of measures in place to make\nsure that projects did not take a turn for the worse like the AFLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that it isn\u2019t enough\nto simply say you\u2019re \u201clooking out for the taxpayer\u2019s money\u201d, frankly every\npolitician will tell you that.  But if\nyou don\u2019t have anything to offer by way of a solution? Then it\u2019s just talk and\njust talking about it won\u2019t get things done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why this Council is\nmoving forward with new policies and new organizational changes to ensure that\ntaxpayer money is well looked after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council was provided with all\nthe information needed to make a decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, as I said, the option at\nthis point was simple: Repair the park or close it down. The vote to repair the\nSkate board park and continue to provide this high, in-demand service for our\nyouth was 6-1 with Councillor Gallo opposed. <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mayor Tom Mrakas This past week at General Committee, Council addressed the ongoing issue of the Skateboard park over at the AFLC. Anyone that has followed the issue of the renovations and upgrades that started during the end of the 2010-2014 term and finished at the beginning of last term are fully aware that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6h2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 01:06:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}