Dear Editor:
Re: Municipal auditor not needed, says mayor, Burnaby NOW, Sept. 2
To paraphrase Shakespeare: "Methinks the mayor doth protest too much" the proposed creation of a municipal auditor general's office.
Surely a candidate like him seeking re-election as the leader of what he claims is the best-managed city in Canada would welcome independent audits. They can only help him to prove his claim and rebut his critics!
So what does he fear? Perhaps he is thinking about an audit of Burnaby Lake dredging.
This $10 million fiasco has generated nothing but negative value for money from the beginning.
The initial contract had taxpayers shelling out $16 million to remove 360,000 cubic metres of mud from the lake ($44.44 per metre). The final figures, from Burnaby engineering director Lambert Chu reported on your pages, have $20.5 million going to remove 180,000 meters (or $113.89 per metre).
The implication: voters received 50 per cent of the expected work (180/360) at 150 per cent of the expected cost ($113/$44). And this does not count future obligations incurred for a restored rowing venue.
For example, Eurasian milfoil (a rapidly growing weed) has reappeared in select lanes, rendering the entire venue potentially unusable for major
competitions. If milfoil must be pruned annually over 20 or more years, to keep the venue usable, the required spending will cumulate to millions of dollars that should be subtracted from any "value" claimed today for dredging.
For another example, rowers, coaches, and event sponsors may insist on being indemnified against any legal risk they incur under Canada's Species-At-Risk Act through using rowing lanes sited in known endangered-species habitat.
The annual cost of insurance against the $500,000 "first offence" fine that awaits a coach or crew unlucky enough to "harass" a turtle while in the lake should also be subtracted from any "value" claimed today for dredging.
Then there is the managerial incompetence exhibited during the dredging itself. This includes the long delay in tagging and tracking turtles, the subsequent use of expensive technology (ground-penetrating radar) in vain attempts to catch up, and the apparent failure to stop the arrival of the dredge at the lake (turning the meter on) until all required permits were secured.
City hall knew it had to collect turtle data after 2002 but only started doing so in earnest in 2009.
When collection did start, catching turtles for tagging proved more difficult than expected, slowing the process down. But word of this delay in the timetable apparently did not reach all city staff, one of whom authorized importation of the dredge absent the final permit to use it.
The result was months of unnecessary spending on idle dredging equipment and months of avoidable spending on costly tracking technology when simply starting the tracking work back in 2003 might have been sufficient to get that last permit.
Mayor Corrigan and his BCA councilors like to boast that Burnaby is the "best managed city in Canada."
I, for one, would like to see an independent auditor with authority to dig formally into civic projects like Burnaby Lake to confirm or deny this boast.
And if an independent auditor finds the mayor's claim to be true, God help the rest of Canada's cities!
G. Bruce Friesen,
Burnaby
