City council voted 6-3 Monday, Aug. 19 to borrow $22.15 million to pay for repairs and enhancements to the Prince George Aquatic Centre after the proposal cleared the counter-petition process.
Residents opposed to the step had 30 days to sign and submit "elector response forms" against the proposal. By the August 9 deadline, it drew 398 such forms - well below the threshold of 5,512 and equal to 10 per cent of the voters in the city - to force council to either take the matter to a full-blown referendum or no longer pursue the proposal.
Council members who subsequently voted in favour of passing the related borrowing bylaw were Susan Scott, Garth Frizzell, Ron Polillo, Cori Ramsay, Kyle Sampson and Tim Bennett.
Against were Mayor Simon Yu and councillors Trudy Klassen and Brian Skakun. All three have been outspoken with their concerns about the process.
That the process was held during the summer was among the shortcomings Klassen pointed out. Yu suggested that the forms could be sent out with the utility bills when the process is conducted in the future.
The $22.15 million comes on top of $14.9 million previously earmarked for the work. It brings the total up to $37 million to be spent on a four-phase project to address building system failures, end-of-service-life infrastructure, energy efficiency and to meet health and safety code requirements.
The money to be borrowed will be paid back over 20 years. Debt servicing costs would be $1.85 million per year and impose a 1.34-per-cent impact on the property tax levy.
The $14.9 million is made up of $8.55 million council approved during budget talks in 2019 and a $6.3-million grant secured in 2020. Work earmarked for that money was put on hold due to the pandemic. The BC Summer Games in 2022 further delayed start of the work.
In 2023, the effort resumed with consultants brought in to provide construction drawings and cost estimates.
"Previous assessments were reviewed and the current conditions and remaining service life for all facility components were examined. These findings identified escalating building envelope failure with additional remediation requirements such as the need to replace the concrete masonry units," civic facility and events director Andy Beesley said in an April report to council.
