{"id":24131,"date":"2019-06-28T12:01:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T16:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24131"},"modified":"2019-06-28T12:01:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T16:01:23","slug":"skateboard-park-to-get-600k-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/skateboard-park-to-get-600k-overhaul\/","title":{"rendered":"Skateboard park to get $600K overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The skateboard park at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex is set\nfor a $600,000 overhaul to correct mistakes stemming from its construction in\n2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council is set to approve the project this week after giving it\nthe tentative green light at the Committee level last Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report by Sarah Tienkamp, Manager of Parks and\nFleet for the Town of Aurora, problems with the skate park became apparent\nalmost as soon as the facility opened, with concrete surfacing failing to\nwithstand its first winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significant cracking became apparent, she said, which was chalked\nup to the retention of water beneath the surface, drainage issues surfaced and\ngrading issues were identified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Town hired external consultants last year to investigate the\nskate park\u2019s rapid deterioration with an eye towards replacement and after\nanalysing the concrete and groundwater, and carrying out strength and\nconstruction tests, \u201ccritical deficiencies\u201d were found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe skate park facility is highly utilized and will continue to\npose a safety risk to users if not mitigated,\u201d said Ms. Tienkamp. \u201cThe cracking\nand delaminating of the concrete lend to an uneven and rough skate surface,\nincreasing the risk of injury to users as skateboard wheels require a smooth\nlevel surface to travel. In addition, pooling water also poses a threat to\npatrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStaff continue to patch and grind the concrete deficiencies,\nutilizing various measures and methods to help mitigate the ongoing problems\nand reduce risk to users. The concrete issues will persist from the frost till\nthe water, drainage and concrete strength\/reinforcement are rectified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the recommendations for the repairs and reconstruction were\nreviewed by Council members last week, the project received near-uniform\nsupport, but questions were posed on why it had taken so long to get to this\npoint and whether the builders, Jasper Construction, could be held to account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor John Gallo led the questions, referring to earlier\ndiscussions during the 2019 Budget Process which led to this $600,000 price tag\nreceiving conditional approval, where talks centred on liability to engineers\nfor the damage that has come up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is not one word identifying whether we looked at\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[liability]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in 2015 when [the issues] were identified after the first winter,\nif we could go back to the contractors, if we could go back to the engineers,\u201d\nsaid Councillor Gallo. \u201cI just can\u2019t sit here and approve $600,000 without\nsomeone telling me we tried to go after them, someone made a mistake, something\nI can tell the taxpayers that I am doing my job and being responsible to them \u2013\nthat at least we tried to recover something.\u201d\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to CAO Doug Nadorozny, some of these concerns were\naddressed in a confidential memo given to Councillors \u201cto set the stage\u201d for\nthis item to come back to the Council table. Mr. Nadorozny noted that the\ncontents of this memo are subject to solicitor-client privilege as legal advice\nwas sought on pursuing damages, but the general conclusion was the Town was\n\u201coutside any reasonable hope of successfully making a claim at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all received a memo outlining some of the issues, and as far\nas how we can move forward and the fact we can\u2019t really go after [the client],\u201d\nadded Mayor Tom Mrakas. \u201cWe lapsed the time when it comes to putting forward\nany type of claim. We did have some issues with the construction company that\ndid the work there. It was problematic, it led to a motion to add in liquidated\ndamages because that was missing [from the contracts] and any contracts from\nthe Town would also include liquidated damages unless specifically removed from\nCouncil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThings have changed. Last term, with these issues that cropped\nup, there have been changes in the Town. Our CAO has come in and has made some\nchanges as well to ensure that things like this do not occur again. Council, I\nthink, as a whole, is comfortable knowing that we have moved forward in a\ndirection that allows us to make sure we are very responsible when it comes to\ntaxpayer dollars and we ensure that every dollar that we do use in any project,\nit is done right and that is moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, what happened with this project is unfortunate but we have\nmoved forward, staff have learned, our CAO has learned, he has made changes,\nCouncil made changes last term\u2026 to ensure stuff like this does not happen\nagain. At the end of the day, this is in front of us and our choice is either\nwe have a skateboard park or we don\u2019t. So, I think my responsibility to the\nresidents is a lot of them use the skateboard park, it is highly used, and my\nresponsibility is to ensure they have that service they expect to have. We are\nin this unfortunate predicament but I think we need to move forward at this\npoint.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Harold Kim, who was also on Council when the skatepark\nwas completed, offered a similar viewpoint, stating that since the construction\nissues were identified, \u201cwe have processed a good understanding of what\noccurred and what lapses occurred in the process, even to what personnel and\nwhat variables contributed to having these deficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there are certain things that are not meant to be\ndiscussed in the public process out of respect and out of just common sense,\u201d\nsaid Councillor Kim. \u201cI think it looks great to say, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s have more\ntransparency\u2019 and so forth, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessary. We are the\nproxy, the elected officials, and that\u2019s why we have things like closed\nsession. I am not saying it is a closed session item because it is already out\nthere in terms of why. This report states clearly in terms of the deficiencies,\nthe materials, the techniques, the deficiencies of the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Gallo, however, contended that the public needs more\ninformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is not comprehensive and it certainly doesn\u2019t give the nitty\ngritty of what Council has looked at, but I think it is important for the\npublic to know that we, as their Council, hopefully watching their money, that\nwe tried to go through a legal channel and we were not able to, for whatever\nreason,\u201d Councillor Gallo concluded on the report. \u201cI think that is all they\nhave to know, and it is a link that is missing here.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The skateboard park at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex is set for a $600,000 overhaul to correct mistakes stemming from its construction in 2015.<\/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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6hd","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 21:37:14","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\/24131","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=24131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}