A draft of Lac La Biche County’ s 2016 budget only just saw the light of day, but one project is already more than just a daydream. County council voted last Tuesday to allocate $100,000 for renovating the former council chambers in McArthur Place.
A draft of Lac La Biche County’ s 2016 budget only just saw the light of day, but one project is already more than just a daydream.
County council voted last Tuesday to allocate $100,000 for renovating the former council chambers in McArthur Place.
That’ s $110,000 less than what county administrators were asking for, but Mayor Omer Moghrabi says they likely overestimated in their projections.
The mayor wasn’ t the only member of council to see plenty of room for adjustment in the project cost breakdown. For example, the $10,000 proposed just for demolition work had councillor John Nowak concerned.
“Some of these numbers do look quite high,” he said.
Councillor Hajar Haymour, a frequent critic of high spending, also took issue with what he saw as an excessive amount of money. He says the county could cut costs by having some of the renovation work done in-house, if possible.
Refurbishing McArthur Place’ s council chambers is part of the plan to once again make the lakefront building the municipality’ s civic centre.
The project was included in next year’ s drafted budget, but county staffers brought it forward last week in hopes that it could be underway sooner rather than later, councillors willing. The mayor says he’ s confident the renovation can proceed with $100,000 earmarked.
Councillor MJ Siebold was the only councillor to vote against allocating the funds last week. In earlier discussions, Siebold had been opposed to even starting the project until a plan to address all of its costs and other implications had been made.
Reinstalling council chambers on the second floor of McArthur Place will have consequences, but the county’ s administrative ranks are prepared to deal with them, says chief administrative officer Shadia Amblie.
“There will be some displacement of staff, but we have it figured out,” Amblie said.
The upper floor at McArthur Place is where the former Town of Lac La Biche council used to meet. The old council chambers have been made into municipal office space in the years since then.
It’ s more than possible to return the rooms to their original purpose and ultimately transform the building, Amblie says, but staff members will have to shuffle around and some might find themselves in entirely different surroundings, which is why county managers are recommending moving in stages.
“We think it’ s doable, it’ s manageable, but it’ s better for us to do this in phases,” she said.
