Craig Gilbert | [email protected]
Jasper’s culture and recreation director was on her hands and knees last week investigating the latest major repair needed at the activity centre.
The wall between the kitchen and the multipurpose hall is pudding.
Yvonne McNabb was at council Tuesday making the case for the “parking lot” items from the 2019 capital budget that councillors couldn’t come to terms on during deliberations at the end of last year.
Among them was a new work order for the wall, which has disintegrated due to a leak from the nearby commercial dishwasher. McNabb said there’s no way to know how long the water has been working, but that the wall is “pliable” and likely riddled with mold now. And since it’s drywall installed in the ‘70s, it probably has asbestos mud inside, so more abatement work will have to take place.
McNabb recommended the work be combined with the replacement of the hall floor with a durable synthetic coating at a total cost of $120,000. Her report to council indicates the floor in the hall is from the original 1977 build, has been sanded down “numerous” times and was ravaged by two floods. It’s been on the books for replacement since 2007.
Councillors approved the spend 5-1 with Coun. Rico Damota voting against. Coun. Jenna McGrath was not at the meeting.
Speaking of rotten walls, an embattled wall in the aquatic centre’s male dressing room needs to come out, and taxpayers should, like Mayor Richard Ireland, hope it’s not load-bearing.
Council agreed to spend at least $200,000 to make the change rooms universal, accessible and free of water damage.
But there was low confidence that’s enough cash to get the job done. Without a more detailed plan of the new layout and what the contractor would find once walls started coming down, there was concern around the council table.
“I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in the numbers put forward,” Ireland, who favoured spending some money on a plan for the dressing room layout instead of greenlighting the renovation, said.
He worried that since the wall appears to be “right where” the outer wall of the pool existed before it had a roof, raising the possibility it is load-bearing or structural and therefore more costly to replace.
McNabb said the work needs to be approved so it can take place along with the replacement of the waterslide ($600,000) and the recoating of the wade pool surface ($11,000) during a shutdown at the aquatic centre later this year. Councillors held off on approving the wade pool work.
They did agree to spend $30,000 to replace dilapidated planters at Centennial Park, with staff to come back with a plan on a more attractive design before they’re installed.
Council also voted 5-1 to spend $25,000 to recoat a dressing room wall.
Coun. Paul Butler said he doesn’t like the idea of borrowing over 25 years to pay for the renovations. He said he’d prefer the work be paid for within this term of council, meaning two years, but that 10 years would be a reasonable place to start the conversation.
He said people not born when the decisions were made would be paying for them, correctly roughing out that interest from borrowing over that period of time makes the final cost about half again as much.
“To build reserves by debt financing is a shell game,” he said.
Coun. Bert Journault countered, arguing the facilities would be enjoyed for decades to come, so it’s fair that those taxpayers shoulder some of the cost.
Mayor Ireland said a reserve is designed to be spent in the future anyway so whether they plunder the chest or go to the bank, they’re taking from yet-to-be-born taxpayers one way or the other.
Part of the problem Butler identified was a number of items included in the budget as major capital items that appeared to be regular maintenance, which should be paid from the department’s operating budget. The result is the town borrowing money for 25 years for regular maintenance that will take place again and again before the bill is paid.
These included painting in the aquatic centre, the recoating of the wade pool, which is to be done on a predictable schedule of every six or seven years, and the dressing room recoating. The surface of the main pool gets redone every five or six years, McNabb said.
Finance director Natasha Malenchak said the projects would cost enough to be considered as a major capital expense.
In the ribs
Those wood beam extensions adorning the facade of the fitness centre should just be cut off. That was Journault’s reaction to a $53,000 proposal to reseal the cosmetic adornments and replace the woefully inadequate flashing that is supposed to direct water away from the building but instead is allowing it to flow inside.
Journault said it’s basic physics: no matter what you do to them, the beams are sloped toward the building and water will continue to flow toward the building, pool where they meet the structure, freeze, damage the seal and get inside.
Council agreed to hold off on the spend before they can ask some questions of operations manager Gord Hutton, who examined the damage, according to McNabb.
“It’ll always be a problem,” Journault said. “The permanent solution is to get rid of them.”
Mayor Ireland cautioned the town managers present that the sloping beams should serve as a warning that with so many major capital projects planned, inspections will be important to avoid wasteful do-overs in the future.
“Inspection is a critical component to make sure people are doing what they’re supposed to do.”
They’re going to blow it
Jasper’s studded bicycle tire program is a go after councillors approved $5,000 in a vote. Residents can pick up two $50 coupons, one per tire, at the town office. Then take the coupons to one of the town’s three bike shops and pay full price, and don’t leave the coupons there. Then take the coupons and the receipt for the tires back to the town office for cash.
Then go for a rip on the streets with less worry of taking a half or even full gainer on the roads. Speaking of, new director of operations John Greathead said outside the Feb. 5 meeting the town may be experimenting with a rented snowblower to clean up the windrowed streets on Thursday.
A snowblower compacts snow down by as much as five times, which would allow crews to clear it more efficiently in dump truck terms. Also, rather than making at least seven traffic moves with a front end loader to load each scoop of snow into the truck, the snowblower follows the truck incrementally down the road, saving more time and improving safety.
He said crews are hard at it but the extreme cold is wreaking havoc on equipment.
Last but not least
Councillors as expected approved a plan to build a $775,000 parking lot in S-block, with the welcome news that a $325,000 grant had come through for the project. The cost to build the lot with parking for more than 50 RVs and its annual maintenance is to be recouped through user fees.
Council also agreed to regrade the intersection of Patricia and Willow streets at a cost of $275,000. The culprit here again is water.
“The intersection holds standing water and discharges overflow towards the town’s water wells,” Hutton wrote in a proposal included in the meeting’s public agenda. “Re-grading the intersection will direct all surface water into the existing storm water mains eliminating runoff from discharging towards the water wells. Additionally, the elimination of standing water will reduce the ongoing road surface repairs caused by the water and the freeze/thaw cycles.”
