Bob Mackin
In the media business, it is called “take out the trash Friday.” When government reserves time on a Friday afternoon to make a bad news announcement.
That is what happened in the middle of Spring Break, one year ago today at the Metro Vancouver offices in the Metrotower skyscraper complex in Burnaby.
theBreaker.news was there on March 22, 2024, when Commissioner Jerry Dobrovolny announced that the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Project would cost $3.86 billion and not be finished until 2030. More than five times the original budget and 10 years later than promised. Dobrovolny blamed construction materials and labour inflation and the 2022 firing of original builder Acciona. The two sides are suing each other.
A year later, citizens in the region still don’t know who exactly is to blame and whether it was incompetence or corruption at play. But they will pay for it on their utility bills. Last month, Metro Vancouver hired a quartet of experts, led by former B.C. Deputy Finance Minister Peter Milburn, to audit the program. It is not the public inquiry or investigation that New Westminster Coun. Daniel Fontaine, Richmond Coun. Kash Heed or the North Shore Neighbourhoods Alliance demanded.
Click and watch highlights of one of the most-expensive news conferences in British Columbia history.
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