The City of Richmond has released thousands of pages documents to the Richmond News about the construction delays of an $84 million facility after a three-year tussle that involved the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC).
The city had argued because they were in a legal battle with the builder, Stuart Olson, they couldn’t release the documents.
Stuart Olson is suing the city for $7 million, claiming the city caused the delays and increased costs in the project.
The Minoru Centre for Active Living was supposed to open by 2017, but it didn’t open until spring 2019. The aquatic centre portion of the facility didn’t open for another 18 months after cracks and leaks were found in and under the pool.
The adjudicator disagreed with the city’s stance that releasing the documents would give away the city’s legal arguments.
The adjudicator stated in his decision that much of the information was already known to both parties, and therefore, releasing the documents wouldn’t jeopardize the city’s position.
That’s because, as the adjudicator explained, “the vast majority of the records were created by or sent to a third party, primarily Stuart Olson and the contract administrator.”
Furthermore, the city also said it might be misleading if redacted documents were sent. A cursory glance at the documents – 3,678 pages in length – shows not many documents have been redacted.
The documents were sent to the News Friday afternoon, just one week after the OIPC adjudicator ruled they were to be released by May 16.
The News will be compiling a timeline of events based on these documents in the near future.
