Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

McKeever deflects library criticism from current council

Beleaguered project faces three budget increases in hot market
1448mckeever
Mea Culpa Councillor Gord McKeever took responsibility for the library cost overruns for the public library this week, as one of the councillors who voted for the project in 2004.

Councillor Gord McKeever wants to set the record straight about the almost-completed $11 million public library — a project that has had three successive million-dollar-plus budget increases since it was first approved.

“Being on council can be a pretty abusive environment,” said the two-term councillor. “It’s one thing to get criticized for decisions you were involved in, it’s quite another to cop it for decisions that you played no part in.”

McKeever is sticking out his neck and coming to the defense of his current council colleagues who he says are taking a hit from some members of the public for a decision they played no part in.

Mayor Ken Melamed was the only other member of the previous council, along with McKeever, who voted to move ahead with the $7 million library project. Even before they left office at the end of 2005, that council approved the first million-dollar increase, bringing the budget to more than $8 million.

McKeever’s comments come on the heels of recent public criticism about capital spending at municipal hall in light of the potential property tax increase above the rate of inflation for the first time in years.

“It’s just not reasonable for these guys to suffer a lot of abuse over this project,” said McKeever of his colleagues.

While he recognizes that the current council has approved two sizable budget increases for the library totaling almost $3 million, it was backed into a corner of sorts in making those decisions — it was simply too far down the road to turn back; the library building had to be finished.

But it was moving forward in what some would call the eye of the “perfect storm” — rising construction costs, an excess of projects around the province, and a shrinking labour pool.

“The library was one of the first capital projects where this new phenomenon was becoming apparent,” recalled McKeever. “It took months of wrestling with it to finally be convinced that it was real because construction cost escalations for a decade or longer had been noodling along (at) cost of living increases.”

If he regrets anything about the process it’s that the previous council was swayed by strong lobbying from the local building community to pursue a construction management model which would allow local trades to participate. That decision was contrary to the recommendation from municipal staff, which called for a fixed price contract.

“That lobbying convinced enough of us to reject the staff recommendation and to go forward with the project management model,” said McKeever.

“We could have fixed this price in 2004 — that’s a decision I would have made differently.”

Local developer Tim Regan, who was part of that lobbying, sees things a little differently.

“They were never in that position to begin with,” he said.

“Nobody was going to do a fixed fee budget.”

Regan, who owns Vision Pacific, said the detailed designs were not complete in 2004 to lock in a fixed price contract.

In fact, the detailed designs were finalized much later, but only because council pursued the construction management model.

Regan also explains a basic rule of thumb in the building industry called the “triple constraint” made up of quality, time and cost.

“You can choose two of these things but you can’t get three,” he said.

The library was always a marquee building, driven by its iconic design.

“They’ve built a very sexy building for us,” he said.

“We were able to achieve a very good looking building.”

But the municipality has paid the price for that. If it was a cost-driven building, on the other hand, the design would have suffered.

That’s a lesson, said Regan, to carry forward with future municipal projects.

McKeever also said part of the decision to proceed with the construction management model was to allow local trades to participate. But when they were asked to submit bids, very few applied.

“I guess things got a little better on the local construction front because they were just conspicuous by their absence, and subsequently, that put us right into the teeth of the construction cost escalation nightmare,” he said.

Regan also takes issue with this statement. Vision Pacific did concrete work there this summer and offered labour rates that were two years old in order to meet the budget.

“There was local participation,” he said.

Whistler Construction confirmed this week that 70 per cent of the facility, portions of which were very complex, were built by local trades.

Both McKeever and Regan agree, however, that the end product is something for Whistler to be proud of.

“This was built for 2020 and who knows what construction costs will be in 2020 but the $11 million might just look like a bargain when we look back from that vantage point,” said McKeever. “So I regret the cost, but I don’t regret the facility itself and I’m looking forward to a time five years from now when it is a cherished centerpiece of the community and is contributing to affordability, economic diversification and education and lifelong learning and all these positive values and people have moved on.”

Municipal staff is expected to present a report to council before the New Year with new information on costs and details of the grand opening, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of January.