The project delivery method for the Fernie firehall has been advanced by council, laying the groundwork for future design planning and adjustment of the project cost.
Council voted in favour of advancing the project on Nov. 26 in a split decision, with Mayor Nic Milligan and councillors Kyle Hamilton and Troy Nixon choosing to move ahead, and councillors Harsh Ramadass and Tracey Audia-Kelly opposing the motion. Councillor Ted Shoesmith ultimately decided to abstain from voting and councillor Kevin MacIsaac was absent from the meeting.
Shoesmith said he chose to abstain because going against the motion would have tied the count, which would only have stalled matters and put unnecessary roadblocks in place without actually changing the outcome of the project.
"All me voting against would have achieved would have been to cause some consternation and disarray, at most a couple weeks. Ultimately changing nothing, but wasting peoples' time," he told The Free Press.
"It wouldn't really have changed the scope, scale, site selection or anything. It would have wasted everyone's time. I'm not that much of a stick in the mud," he said.
Shoesmith said that he disagrees with the final site selection for the fire hall and has concerns about the price tag, but with council having made all the big decisions already, the final vote is ultimately in the community's hands with the coming referendum.
"It's gotta go to referendum and let the people thumb up or thumb down," he explained. "If they thumb up, great. If they thumb down, then we can revisit these questions. In the scheme of things and with timelines I would imagine it would be at the tail end of this term or those would be a set of questions for the next council. It'll really come down to what the people think at this point."
The next steps of the project will involve developing a design and final cost estimate and permitting, prior to the project going to referendum.
Preliminary financial estimates currently rest at $20,535,000, as per the Arcadis Report delivered in September. Mayor Milligan said council and the city will work towards cutting costs in the next phase to reduce the price tag.
"We've seen the $20 million figure. That's a class D estimate. It's based on a fairly rough design," Milligan said.
"How do we refine those costs? How do we save money on our purchasing timeline? There's a whole bunch of other factors now that will get considered to refine them to the greatest degree possible," he explained.
Mayor Milligan said as long as the project costs over $14 million, it will go to referendum sometime next year.
Ramadass said he's still concerned with the cost of the build, given the multitude of other major projects that the city will have to deal with including water, sewage and roads.
"When I put a motion on the floor a couple of months ago for a $12 million cap, that got rejected. I don't think my stance has changed very much since then. We still need an operating firehall, but unfortunately this is a big commitment," he said in the council meeting.
Nixon was eager to see the project move forwards. He expressed concern over the fire crew not having a proper place to train and work, and the prospect of having to pay more insurance for staying long-term in the temporary firehall at 1492B Railway Ave.
"We need a fire hall, period, and we need it soon. I'm always cognizant of the Fire Underwriters Survey. We're all going to end up paying more in insurance if we avoid this and we continue on with this temporary fire hall," he said at the meeting.
"Our firefighters deserve a firehall, our community deserves a firehall. We need this for everybody," he added.
There are a few funding options that council could pursue to borrow money to fund the project, including short-term and long-term borrowing options, with two of the three flowing through the Regional District of East Kootenay from Municipal Finance Authority of B.C. All three options have interest rates between four and five per cent.
Milligan said he's leaning towards short-term at the moment.
"The standard long-term borrowing only has a couple of windows where we can apply to the Municipal Finance Authority. The short-term borrowing option allows us to apply at any time during the year," he explained.
"We'd be borrowing essentially the same amount, but it allows us to apply any time, so we're not introducing an artificial deadline, which allows us to consider all factors. Nothing gets rushed. We submit when we're ready. I tend to favour that," he added.
