At their regular meeting this week, Kimberley City Council authorized a consultant agreement with Aqua-Tex to modify and complete design drawings for Phase II of the flume. The contract amount is roughly $102,000.
Mayor Don McCormick says this step is necessary before Council gives final approval to the second and final step in the Mark Creek Flume Rehab project.
“Council and the CAO and everyone involved in this project is adamant that we are not going to go a single dollar over budget,” McCormick said. “What we need are Class A estimates that result from the tender process. All we have now are Class B and we don’t want to go ahead with those.”
What McCormick means by Class A are actual commitments from contractors on prices. In concurrence with Aqua-Tex completing the design drawings, tender documents will be prepared as well. The third piece, McCormick says, is preparing the infrastructure design for water and sewer line work that must be done in conjunction with Phase II.
“We need to do all of that to get the Class A estimates,” he said. “We need to ensure it will absolutely come in on budget.”
The current budget for the final phase, including provincial and federal grant money, is $3 million.
McCormick says it has not yet been determined if there will be a general contractor on the project or if City staff will take that role.
“We may not have the staff capacity. The intent is to use internal resources when we have capacity. It depends what other projects are in the queue for this summer. At the end of the day we don’t have as much staff as you may think.”
The bottom line on the project is it must be in budget.
“Finish at all costs is not the principle we are going by.”