The City of Regina and the architecture firm that built the city square plaza downtown have settled their mutual lawsuits, but we don’t know how much- if any- money changed hands.
The matter began in 2008 when the City of Regina contracted Winnipeg firm, “Cohlmeyer Architecture” for work on the plaza.
The project was budgeted for $4 million, but the final price tag more than tripled, coming in at $13.1 million.
Fast forward to 2012, Cohlmeyer filed a lawsuit against the city for almost $600,000. A few months later the city counter filed a $3 million suit against Cohlmeyer.
Now, the city has confirmed the two sides have discontinued their claims, but that the details are confidential.
“The details leading the to the discontinuances are confidential and protected by settlement privilege,” the city says in a written statement.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) says that answer isn’t good enough.
Colin Craig, the CTF Prairie Director, says the government should be transparent with taxpayer money.
“The bottom line is that if the government is going to go to court with a company, they should be transparent about what the outcome is,” said Craig via Skype to Global News. “If two private people want to deal with something in court and have the details confidential that’s their business, but we’re talking about public funds. Most people expect the government to be accountable.”
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He’s also calling for more transparency on the project details themselves.
“We’d like to know who’s been held accountable at the city for all of the screw-ups of the project,” he said. “Has anyone been fired? Has anyone received a pay cut?”
Global News asked Mayor Michael Fougere directly about the project, but he said he couldn’t say anything more beyond the city’s official statement.
“I believe that’s an agreement between the parties not to talk about that. That’s my understanding,” said Fougere.
“It seems like another case of the government spending other people’s money so there’s kind of an ‘oh well’ mentality,” concluded Craig. He added that the CTF will continue to push for answers on this issue.
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