Mayoral candidate says more attention should have been paid to cost of Memorial Gardens renovation project

Mayoral candidate Gary Gardiner says more attention should have been paid to the cost of the renovation of Memorial Gardens.

He says the mayor should have followed the project more closely.

He says all budgets are followed closely as there are monthly updates for example.

“In this case I am sure they would have weekly reporting on where the budget is going and what the costs are. I find it surprising that the mayor wasn’t involved in that kind of detail looking at budgets and following the project,” he says.

Gardiner says the contract the city agreed to was impossible to meet and if he was mayor he wouldn’t get into a situation like that.

“You have to analyze the proposal and see the net benefit for the city. You have to look at cost, see how that cost will be paid for and figure out what the community wants,” Gardiner says.

Estimates are the project ended up costing over $16 million and Gardiner says that’s nearly $4 million more than residents were expecting.