$47/psf for a lease located outside downtown.....that is atrocious.
https://www.google.com/search?q=CBE+...hrome&ie=UTF-8
210,000 SQFT X $47/psf annual (unclear if utilities and taxes are additional) = $9.87MM per year in lease expenses. A rate of $10/psf alone would yield annual savings of $8MM.
Here's an article from 2018 that suggests they were mislabeling costs associated with the lease as well. Lease costs, locked in, will escalate to $62/psf at the end of the lease. This was from an audit done by David Eggen (NDP).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...osts-1.4607595
How the holy hell do you allow a 2.5% per year, indefinite escalation clause, to be included in your lease, when you are a quasi government organization with no real credit risk? If I could fire the people responsible for that decision, I would do so five times over. If I could give a high five to the folks negotiating the lease on the other side of the table, I would (they probably popped champagne, to be honest).
The building decision alone is inexcusable, and we haven't even scratched the surface on any of the other potential mismanagement. If they have no idea how to negotiate a simple lease, what else are they letting slip through?
I think we can put to bed the partisan non-sense here. Just because they were elected doesn't mean they know what they are doing, or that they should be given carte blanche to mindlessly dole out tax payer dollars due to inefficient or non-existent governance practices. I would have openly applauded the NDP for doing the same thing, and I'm glad that finally someone is taking the CBE trustees to task.
A lot of folks here are complaining about the quality of service being provided during the pandemic. If things were more efficiently managed at the board level, the immediate beneficiary is front line services, and by extension, the kids.