If lawsuits against the city for alleged unpaid work on the police headquarters project are successful, city officials don’t expect taxpayers to be on the hook. That’s what the “labour and materials payment bond” on the project is for.
“The owner of a construction project (in this case, the City) is required to hold back a percentage of all payments made to the general contractor – those holdback amounts are held in trust to cover potential lien claims from unpaid sub-trades,” Kealy Dedman, deputy CAO, said in an email to GuelphToday.
“The City expects that any failure by Jasper Construction to pay its sub-trades for completed work will be addressed under the labour and materials payment bond, as intended.”
Five sub-contractors have filed lawsuits against the City of Guelph and former project manager Jasper Construction collectively seeking more than $1.5 million for alleged unpaid work associated with the expanded and renovated police headquarters.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
City officials announced in early July that Jasper was let go due to “serious” contractual deficiencies in the work completed to date that had been identified but not rectified. Soon after, city bonding agent Perini Management was announced as the new general contractor.
The city has not filed a statement of defence in any of the lawsuits. In a couple of the cases Jasper has filed crossclaims seeking to have any judgement against it awarded to the city.
The $34.1 million expansion and renovation of police headquarters, at 15 Wyndham St. S., began in April 2016. Work was initially expected to be done by spring of last year but is not yet complete.
In addition to being more than a year behind schedule, the project is running over budget. City staff are working to determine just how much it’s running over budget. There is no timeline for a report to council.
