City officials grilled over fire station expansion

A Winnipeg council committee has grilled three of the city's top officials, including fire Chief Reid Douglas, about a controversial fire hall construction project.

Fire Station No. 11 on Portage Avenue is only partially built, and it has already incurred cost overruns of $2.2 million to fund an additional 3,500 square-foot expansion.

The project has also raised political questions, such as why the fire hall expansion was given the green light without council approval,as a report released last week found, and why the project is now way over budget.

Those were the types of questions the city's protection and community services committee had on Monday for Douglas, city chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl and chief operating officer Deepak Joshi.

One councillor on the committee suggested that Sheegl should be held accountable for the fiasco, and that Sheegl should not be using Douglas as a scapegoat.

But in response, Douglas said, "The primary concern that I have is the safety of citizens in this city."

"People are going to say what they're going to say. I don't care," he added.

"I take my job very seriously, and that's where I keep going down the road towards."

The report claims that Douglas changed the scope of the fire hall project and had the authority to do so.

Station 11, under construction near the Route 90 and Portage Avenue cloverleaf, is part of alarger land swap dealthat will be reviewed by external auditors.

Douglas, head of Winnipeg's Fire Paramedic Service,is in the middle of that controversy as well, for arranging a verbal agreement with Shindico Realty on the land swap.

That deal was also done without council approval.

Mayor Sam Katztook Douglas off the Station 11 projectearlier this month amid controversy about the expansion, and put the city's property and planning department in charge of the job.

The Station 11 issue has now been passed on to council's executive policy committee without any recommendations.