Hard to track costs, projects, Keogh

It's all hindsight ahead. A series of "what ifs" analyzed so money trails from now on always lead somewhere.

But former mayor Larry Keogh isn't as much surprised that public works director George Degroot was fired for overseeing a consultant's contract that climbed in cost beyond what had been authorized, as he is that "it's quite clear a third of the council there now (mayor Mike MacEachern, deputy mayor Rick Milne, and Ward 4 councillor Richard Norcross), was there when all these projects were launched. It's not a matter of lets blame the last council, because a third are one in the same."

Mr. Keogh said he learned this morning of Mr. Degroot's termination and credited the former director who joined the Town in 1992, with being a key member of the infrastructure program beginning in 1998.

"He was an intricate part in certainly getting the pipeline here," said Mr. Keogh. "And it works extremely well. That project was completed on time and on budget. He was very instrumental with Sterling Zeran on that one, for sure."

The former mayor said he could not recall how Stantec Consulting's fees for its work on remediation and expansion of the regional sewage treatment plant (STP) and the Tottenham sewage Minister's order, would have climbed to over $5 million.

"I know George was either asked to, or reported to council fairly regularly on the progression of the work on Tottenham and on the STP. Whether every time he came he actually had a detailed figure of the estimate that was going to cost, I'd have to go back to the reports on that. I know we did talk about rectifying the (STP) an awful lot. And we did talk about different proposals in Tottenham. Now whether all the members of council understood; if you talk about one project at this council meeting, and a month later you're talking about another one, do members of council add those up in their head? That I'm not sure of."

Mr. Norcross was surprised to learn of Mr. Keogh's notion that he and the other two incumbents on council should have had an idea of the Stantec file.

"We know that last year, in April or May, I wanted the bills from Stantec, and I wanted to know how much money had been paid to Stantec because I had no idea where we were sitting with them," said the Beeton councillor. "I couldn't get a report from May 2003. It took until February 2004 to finally get that report. I had absolutely no idea. That's why I was pushing as hard as I was. On more than one occasion, I wanted the report. What are we spending with these guys? What are they doing? Who's authorizing this. It took about a year to get the reports. I was stonewalled. When I got the dollar value, I couldn't believe it. I was Flabbergasted."

Mr. Keogh said the root of the problem dates back to 1998 when that council led by then mayor Rick Milne selected Maple Engineering to build the regional STP, which had the lowest tender in the design build process.

"It all started three council's ago when they made a mistake and allowed the company to build that STP," said Mr. Keogh. "They knew damn well that it was under priced by as much as three or four million dollars."

Former Ward 1 councillor Gary Dorland, who was serving out his first term on that council, told Free Press Online they had few options other than to select the lowest tender because the former Conservative government at Queen's Park had only provided approximately $16 million to build both sewage and water infrastructure for Honda Canada's then new mini-van plant.

"No doubt the council would have been criticized for taking the second lowest bid (which was about $14 million)," said Mr. Dorland. "Yes my council approved that. It was some kind of new technology and it was supposed to work. Obviously if that plant worked as it was supposed to, we wouldn't be having this telephone conversation."

It never did, and ever since, Maple and New Tecumseth have been tied up in litigation.

Stantec was hired to fix the problem and develop an expansion plan at the same time, while also helping prepare the Town's legal case. Their bill just for sewage plant related works is over $3 million and Mr. Degroot's final report last Monday night suggested it would cost an additional $2 million for engineering.

"All the Stantec work was proposed at council for sure. Whether it was very clearly outlined the exact dollar figure, but certainly, the projects were presented to council," said Mr. Keogh. "The only thing I can say is we did discuss Stantec and the projects, and that he proposed Stantec be used on another project such as the industrial study. And he also proposed them for Tottenham. Those things came, and there was a price tag attached at that time. If the thing creeped to almost doubled, some of that I imagined was talked about in council, but certainly not to that magnitude I'm sure. Part of it probably is the fact that George brought different projects at different times, and I'm not sure that council ever asked what all of this cost."

The former mayor was also adamant that he did not authorize any contract overruns outside of council.

"I never talked to George on a one to one basis or when there were two or three people in my office about overruns and things like that," said Mr. Keogh. "And certainly there was no approval given by the mayor on any of those. So if it was discussed, it was discussed in council. In some occasions it was discussed incamera because there were legal ramifications, but a lot of it was discussed in council."

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