REGINA – An attempt to overturn an earlier council decision to debt-finance the Central Library renewal project has fallen short.
At a special meeting Tuesday at Regina City Hall, council voted 6-4 against a motion to reconsider brought toward by four councillors — Terina Nelson, Lori Bresciani, Cheryl Stadnichuk and Shanon Zachidniak — regarding council’s earlier 4-3 decision on July 9 to commit between $92 to $119 million in debt financing to the Central Library project.
In their motion dated Oct. 1, the four councillors raised alarms about that commitment, pointing to new information about cost projections for the Indoor Aquatics Facility project whose costs had increased over $80 million over budget.
But the prospect of council reversing their decision drew a reaction of frustration from representatives of the Regina Public Library who appeared before council Tuesday afternoon.
“It feels like we’ve been working on this for a long time. It feels like we’ve come back to council with anything you’ve asked for. We’ve come back to council with things you haven’t asked for. So yeah, our level of frustration would be pretty high,” said Regina Public Library Board Chair Marj Gavigan, when asked by Mayor Sandra Masters what her reaction would be to a yes vote to reconsider.
Councillor Nelson, who moved the reconsideration motion, asked library officials what they had to say about the “frustration of the taxpayers who say ‘you 11 people are sitting in that chamber making decisions, the majority of you make over $50,000 a year, and you are deciding on money spent that I can’t afford.’”
“I appreciate there are those taxpayers,” Gavigan responded, “but I can tell you I have talked to taxpayers who are pretty frustrated that 11 people sitting around this table making over .$50,000 a year can’t make a decision. And that the years that have been spent with no money has gone to infrastructure is pretty frustrating. So now we have to spend more.”
“Well I can tell you that councillors here made a decision, we all made a decision,” said Nelson. “We just didn’t have 11 around the table last time, we only had seven.”
In the end, the four councillors who were in favor of the motion to reconsider had an uphill fight on their hands trying to convince any other members of council to change their minds. Councillor Bresciani, who is running for mayor on a fiscal responsibility platform, voiced her support for the reconsideration motion, as she expressed concern about the city taking on more debt for the project.
“The timing of this, I think unfortunately, politically, it’s wrong,” said Bresciani. “ I always want to leave the next council in a better place. That’s my job as a councillor. I don’t think we will be. They’re going to have to take on this debt and the decisions that we made.”
Councillor Bob Hawkins had moved the motion for funding the library project back in July, and made clear he was against the reconsideration motion and against any further delays to the project.
“We’ve delayed this for 15 years,” Hawkins said. “The real question is why we didn’t get on with it five years ago or 10 years ago when it would have cost much less… delay will introduce uncertainty and uncertainty with this project is the last thing we need.”
“I’m getting on my soapbox,” Nelson said, who questioned why the city was going ahead with these projects given the financial problems facing it.
’I’ll tell you people — my ward is super angry, angry that they’re on the hook for a bunch of peoples’ wish projects and promise projects, and well-this-is-what-was-supposed-to-be-done projects.”
In the end, only Nelson, Bresciani, Stadnichuk and Zachidniak were in favor of the reconsideration motion. Mayor Masters and five other councillors voted against; councillor Landon Mohl recused himself from the vote.
In speaking to reporters afterwards Gavigan said the vote to reject the reconsideration motion “adds a lot of credibility to the library and the library project.”
“Our developers now know that the city is committed and will back us for that debt financing and so we can move forward in an RFP and get some solutions proposed by developers. So that’s pretty key. I think it’s pretty key for the people of Regina and the property tax holders as well, that the city has made a decision and stood by it. They can be assured there will be a renewed central library.”
