By Dominic Abassi

Discontent City costs well over $300K; City continues to withhold legal bill

Jan 17, 2019 | 4:31 PM

Nanaimo taxpayers will soon find out the total bill for Discontent City but preliminary numbers show it will be significant.

A detailed cost breakdown obtained through a freedom of information request showed the City spent a little more than $300,000 on matters related to the sprawling downtown tent city from the time it opened in mid-May up until Nov. 1.

The cost data does not include what are expected to be substantial legal fees, which the City declined to release on several occasions even after multiple FOI requests were filed

“At this time, solicitor/client privilege still applies to the redacted portions of the records, as well as ongoing litigation privilege. We are keeping an eye on the situation and when these records can be made available,” the City said of withholding the legal bill.

Discontent City officially closed in early December and the City-owned land was returned to its original state by Dec. 15.

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The breakdown provided also does not include final cleanup costs, a process that involved several pieces of heavy machinery and contractors hauling multiple bins of garbage from the site for several days.

The City told NanaimoNewsNOW it is preparing a final report covering all expenditures up until the final closing date of tent city and the information should be made public by late February or early March. It remains unknown if the legal costs will be included in that report.

The bulk of the expenses, over 60 per cent, are for staff time spent dealing with tent city-related issues.

Other notable amounts were $34,000 for a communications consultant, over $20,000 for litter pickup and $12,000 for portable toilets.

In October, the previous Nanaimo Council also committed $301,000 for a Discontent City “closure plan,” designed to increase security and cleanup efforts mostly in the downtown core in expectation of issues when the illegal camp closed. That amount is above and beyond the $300,000 spent through the end of October.

On top of the municipal expenditures, the provincial government spent roughly $3.5 million in total to buy land and install two temporary supportive housing units designed to take in roughly half of the estimated 300 people displaced by the closure of the tent city.

Discontent City was established by local activists, with support from Lower Mainland activists, as a form of protest to “hold the City accountable” for perceived failures in dedicating resources to the local homelessness issue.

dom@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @domabassi