The Town of Taber will not be proceeding with renovations to the administration building.

At its meeting tonight, council passed a motion, by a vote of 5-1, to reject all tenders for the project. Mayor Ray Bryant and Coun.(s) Randy Sparks, John Papp, Rick Popadynetz and Murray Rochelle voted in favour of the motion, while Coun. Garth Bekkering was opposed. Coun. Louie Tams was absent from the meeting.

Popadynetz made the motion, which also included a Rochelle amendment to have council provide administration direction on how to proceed from here, at the March 12 meeting. In the end, council decided the price tag was too high. Administration had recommended council accept a low tender from Amron Construction of Medicine Hat, in the amount of just under $1.76 million.

Sparks was the first to speak out against the project, as he mentioned he was taken by surprise with how quickly council was being asked to make a decision.

"I thought we were just exploring costs. I thought that was what we were doing," he said, as he added the costs were simply too high. "I do not like to see money coming from reserves. We should be adding to reserves, not depleting them. Now is not the time to use public funds for a project like this."

Sparks said the money could be spent in better places, and suggested if the the million-plus dollars was going to be spent on the administration building, he would prefer a new building altogether.

"We could build a new two-story building with a smaller footprint," he said.

Bekkering took a different angle, as he suggested while spending money on items like the administration building will never be popular, it will have to happen sooner or later.

"I do think this building needs renovations," he said, but added those renovations should come on a smaller scale, in the $300,000 to $400,000 range. "Do we have to spend some money? Yes we do. It's ugly and it's inefficient."

Rochelle added band-aid solutions may not be enough for the building, but also railed against spending a million-plus, and mentioned he too would like to see some other options for a more reasonable amount of money.

Popadynetz agreed with Sparks in that a new building would be smarter, and also mentioned the fact no local contractors put a bid in on the project. That was due to the requirement for contractors to complete the bid-bond requirement.

"As a local employee of a contractor in this town, I don't like going out of our community for a contractor," said Popadynetz, who added with the continuation of this practice for large town projects could put a pinch on Taber contractors. "Am I going to have a job in the future — who knows?"

He mentioned the job could have been split up into three phases, which local contractors would have had a better shot bidding on.

Earlier in the day, a local contractor and the president of the Taber and District Chamber of Commerce raised concerns with that very issue. Henk deVlieger of Venture Holdings was not one of the seven contractors who bid on the project, as the bid-bond requirement was the hang up.

“For us and most local companies, I don’t have bonding, and council knows that,” said deVlieger, who added because of that, local companies have one other option to bid on big town projects. “The other option for me is to give a letter of credit.”
That would require his company to put up 50 per cent of the total cost, which he added would tie up too much in cash and assets.
“I asked the town to lower that to 20 per cent, but they were not willing to do that,” said deVlieger, who added the 50-per-cent standard is too high.
As such, deVlieger did not put in a bid.
“I made the choice not to do it because of the things required. Why should I have to write a letter of credit for $600,000 for the privilege of doing the job?”
Bruce Warkentin, the president of the Taber and District Chamber of Commerce, added the chamber is also concerned with the fact no local bids came in for the project.
“I want the chamber to be a voice for local business, and encourage our local government to use local businesses, with good governance and economic policy.”
He added the town should be encouraged to use local contractors if at all possible for Taber projects.

Whether or not those local contractors will be in the mix next time is yet to be seen, as the project is on hold for now.

Taber Mayor Ray Bryant said it is a concern no local contractor bid on the project, which opened to tender in December. He added the bid-bonding process is standard procedure when dealing with public money, as the process is in place to ensure the project is completed, either by the original contractor or someone else.
“There was some discussion as to altering the specifications,” said Bryant, who added changing the rules in the middle of the game would have created some difficulties.

As for the total cost of the work, the mayor added the majority was going to be covered by provincial funding.
“It’s my understanding that about three quarters of that would be funded from MSI funding and a third from our reserves,” said Bryant, who added that MSI funding was not particularly for the administration building, but funding to deal with infrastructure issues in general for Taber.
The work itself has been a long time coming, he added.
“Administration has been working on this for close to two years,” said Bryant, who added the building is not as functional as the town would like.

“All of this is to provide a good work environment for our staff and also to provide better service,” said Bryant, who added the function of the building has changed dramatically from its original use, when organizations like the Taber School Division, an irrigation district and a MLA office occupied it. “What we have left here is the inefficient use the space we have.”
Part of the work will be to remedy what Bryant said is a unique situation among employees on one side of the building versus those on the other side.
“One side we have staff working on top of each other, and the other side we have too much room.”

The Building Renovation Committee (BRC) had been working with Sahuri and Partners Architecture to re-design the building. Modernization, energy efficiency and making the building more functional were reasons given for renovations designed to meet the town’s needs for the next 10-20 years.

Sixteen general contractors attended an on-site meeting to learn about the potential project and in the end, seven submitted tenders for the work, which ranged from a low of just under $1.176 million to a high of just over $1.787 million.
In the plans presented to council, the front entranceway would have been expanded, which would have been the only change to the building’s exterior. For the work on the foyer and common areas between the town and M.D. of Taber, the town was set to present its plans at the M.D. meeting Feb. 14, to justify the costs associated with the M.D.'s half of the work.

Other work was to include plumbing, electrical, heating, ventilation, reworking office space and moving council chambers to a new location.