A proposed resolution from Dawson City mayor Bill Kendrick died on the floor at the Jan. 16 Dawson City council meeting.
Kendrick introduced a motion to form a working group to explore the idea of a more central location for the community’s new recreation centre. Right now the centre is planned for a location at Dome Road and the Klondike Highway. Last week Kendrick spoke with the News about the possibility of locating it behind the RCMP detachment in Dawson.
When none of his fellow councillors seconded the motion at the meeting, Kendrick expressed frustration.
“It’s been a new thing and maybe I’m wrong here, but quite often in councils, municipal councils, you move and second on something to get it to the floor to have a discussion and vote it down if you need to. This idea when we don’t even move or second something … I don’t understand it.”
Another motion however, was carried—to design and build the recreation centre using a progressive design procurement build method.
Paul Robitaille is the manager of parks and recreation for the City of Dawson. He told council that governments typically use a design-bid-build method when it comes to procurement, where separate contracts are awarded for design and construction phases. That can lead to challenges, he said, where there’s a disconnect between the design of a build and the market value of what it actually costs to build that design.
That can be even more difficult to work with on a fixed budget, he said.
The Dawson City recreation centre has a $65 million budget.
Progressive design builds offer one contract for design and build, with collaboration coming from the client, design team and construction company, Robitaille said.
“This is not a method that the City of Dawson’s ever participated in. It’s not a method that the Yukon government’s ever participated in, but we all recognize that in a lot of these major projects, we’re getting to a point where the market is really hard to determine and it’s really hard to budget for what we realistically need,” said Robitaille. “This is a way that we’re seeing a lot of other jurisdictions deal with it and we think this is a good way to tackle it.”
The motion was passed, along with a resolution to include a local advisory group as part of that build process.
“When you have an advisory group, they want to see the project come to fruition and they drive it forward,” Robitaille said. “What we’re also seeing in our community, and you see a lot of places, is people will mistrust in government. Big surprise, the Yukon has that same issue.”
He said getting the community more involved will push the project forward.
“They’re gonna say, ‘yeah, this reflects what we asked for and how we want to use the building’ … there’s a bit more attention to the details of the project and the practicality of it.”
Contact Amy Kenny at amy.kenny@yukon-news.com