Coun. Laurie Kidd said North Bay council made a “grave error” paying $189,000 for a one-third of an acre lot at the corner of First and Ferguson streets, shown above, that will be used for parking.
Coun. Laurie Kidd said North Bay council made a “grave error” paying $189,000 for a one-third of an acre lot at the corner of First and Ferguson streets, shown above, that will be used for parking.
A city developer who traded it in exchange for city-owned property on Cartier Avenue had actually owned the lot.
Kidd made her remarks at Monday night’s committee meeting of council while substituting for General Government Committee chairwoman Lynne Bennett, who did not attend.
She was discussing a report to council by Terry Ringler, corporate services managing director, which recommends a monthly parking lot be established on the lot, previously owned by the Near North District School Board, to deal with public parking problems on First and Second avenues.
A $25 per month fee would be charged for parking there.
Ringler also recommended reviewing sight lines and parking setbacks at the intersections of First and Ferguson, First and Wyld, Second and Ferguson and Second and Wyld.
Shuffled through too quickly Kidd, revealing information originally discussed behind closed doors called the swap “a bad deal.”
“I’m convinced we threw away money,” she said, adding the deal got “shuffled through” too quickly for her liking.
As well, Kidd asked Ringler if the city could have bought the same downtown property from the board for $65,000 two years ago.
“I don’t know,” Ringler answered.
Baytoday.ca has also learned the Cartier Avenue lot was three acres, compared to the one-third acre lot downtown.
Inaccurate information revealed Coun. Susan Church, who asked for a full report on the issue for next week’s council meeting, said following the meeting that Kidd not only revealed in-camera information, "she revealed inaccurate in-camera information."
“The cost of the land, for example, the number she cited was a property assessment that was done on the land swapped in this particular deal, it wasn’t what the city paid for that property,” Church said.
“So I think a great disservice was done this evening.”
Church believes the swap for the parking lot property was the only deal city staff could make “in light of the fact we know there’s a parking problem downtown.”
The school board, Church said, had made an offer to the city of North Bay for the lot “that wasn’t accepted.”
Out of left field The property was then put up for public sale, Church said, but the city did not put in an offer to buy it.
“A private citizen ended up buying it and, from there, the city suddenly decided, ‘oops we need to buy this land,’ and a transaction took place,” Church said.
Kidd, Church said, was “coming out of left field” in raising the matter.
“She was venting. She had three years to make statements and speeches, and her last committee meeting wasn’t the place to do it.”
