A delay in expanding sewer service on Quadra Island has the island’s director frustrated and concerned about lawsuits.
Quadra Island Director Jim Abram expressed his ‘extreme disappointment’ with the situation at last Thursday’s Strathcona Regional District board meeting.
“I am personally extremely disappointed to see this back again,” Abram said. “We’ve all seen this too many times.”
The $870,200 project to connect close to 40 properties in Quathiaski Cove to the island’s sewer system was approved in a referendum in July of 2014 and has yet to get underway.
That’s because a Request for Proposals (RFP) process to recruit contractors yielded bids that were all significantly over budget, according to Tom Yates, acting CAO of the regional district.
Abram expressed his disappointment in the situation after reading a report from Yates that suggested the project go back out to a RFP, instead of being directly awarded to a consortium of people on Quadra who Abram said are qualified to carry out the work.
Abram said former regional district CAO Russ Hotsenpiller met with the consortium and things appeared to be moving forward.
“Everybody was led to believe this was totally workable,” Abram said. “Those people were led to believe that this was going to happen, because of that they adjusted their schedules and we adjusted our schedules.
“The verbal agreement was ‘we can make this work’. Now we have a report before us that says we have to go back to RFP,” Abram said. “We’re already over budget, why even bother going back to RFP? It’s ridiculous.
“I believe we’re walking into a real hornet’s nest here.
“We have inconvenienced people to a point of possible lost income. That’s called lawsuits.”
Abram said he was left in the dark that the project wouldn’t proceed as discussed.
Yates, in his report, confirmed that the regional district was approached by individual contractors who live on Quadra regarding the possibility of direct awarding the contract to them for the sewer project.
Yates said staff is of the understanding “that a commitment to do so may have been communicated to them” but that may have been a mistake.
“There are some challenges associated with such an approach since the bylaw that regulates regional district procurement processes specifically requires a competitive procurement process for projects of this magnitude,” Yates wrote. “In addition, there are existing senior government trade agreements that are binding on the regional district, and which would require bidding opportunities for projects of this size to be made available to non-local suppliers and contractors.”
Abram was frustrated with staff’s hands being tied.
“We have senior managers who we trust implicitly to do our work who can’t issue a reward or get quotes – they have to go for a request for proposal – which other regional districts would do in a heartbeat,” Abram said. “So I’m extremely disappointed with this report.”
Yates, however, wrote that in re-issuing an RFP there is a good chance that the second time around will be more successful.
“It is staff’s belief that, with some relatively minor adjustments to the contract requirements, it may be possible to realize bids more in keeping with the project’s $870,200 budget,” Yates wrote.
But that didn’t satisfy Abram who was concerned about all of the Quadra contractors who moved their schedules around to be available for the sewer project.
At that point, Area D Director Brenda Leigh suggested the issue be further discussed in-camera, behind closed doors.
The board, with the exception of Abram, agreed and the topic picked up during the board’s in-camera session at the end of the meeting.
The board reconvened following the in-camera portion to publicly announce it would be going ahead with another competitive bidding process. The board also asked staff to prepare a report on updating the regional district’s procurement, or purchasing, policy.