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Prince George Citizen June 10, 2021

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RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL MEMORIAL MOVED TO MUSEUM – PAGE 3 ELDER, UNBC ACADEMIC OFFER INSIGHT ON RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS – PAGE 12, 13

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$2.00 Your community newspaper since 1916

Thursday, June 10, 2021

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PRINCEGEORGECITIZEN

PARKADE REPORT UPSETS SKAKUN ARTHUR WILLIAMS

An independent legal review into the city’s downtown parkade project that went millions overbudget didn’t go far enough, Coun. Brian Skakun says.

CITIZEN STAFF PHOTO

Emma Broomsgrove and her dog Birdy stand outside the front of their Farrell Street home in South Fort George.

Stilts solve flooding problems for riverside homeowners TED CLARKE

People thought Emma Broomsgrove and her partner Garrett Fedorkiw were out of their minds nine years ago when they decided to buy a house on a Prince George street prone to flooding almost every year from the Fraser River spring runoff.

At the time they took possession of the house on Farrell Street overlooking Pad-

dlewheel Park, their street was partially under water. But Broomsgrove and Fedorkiw had a plan to raise the nearly 1,000 square-foot house off its foundation and put it on stilts nine feet above the flood plain – seven feet higher than where it originally rested when it was built in the 1950s. They hired a local contractor, Helix Foundation Systems, who dug down and, using

steel beams, gradually picked the house up off its foundation. The $120,000 project was completed last spring after two weeks of construction. The couple spent a further $80,000 to renovate the inside of their now-waterproof house. See ‘EVERYBODY on page 2

Skakun said he still wants to see an external investigation into the matter by the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs. In addition, he believes the city needs to follow the lead of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and request a comprehensive forensic audit of the city’s finances. “This report leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Why was there such an effort to keep this information from the public and from council? Why did this happen?” Skakun said he’s not satisfied the $34.16 million final price tag reported to council – $22.46 million for the parkade, $597,138 to connect the parkade to the city’s district energy system, and $11.1 million for water and sewer upgrades in the area and other off-site works – is the total cost of the project. The parkade project had an initial budget of $12.6 million. The report spelled out the timeline of what happened and raised concerns regarding the city’s due diligence prior to signing the agreement with developer A & T Project Developments, Skakun said. See ‘I HAVE on page 2

• Only 4 units left for sale and 5 for rent • YMCA Daycare construction starting soon • Future Phases in planning stages

Learn more at:

ParkHousePG.com


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Prince George Citizen June 10, 2021 by Prince George Citizen - Issuu