City removes 7 more speakers in danger of falling on fans from the stadium

The city has removed sevenmore speakers that were at risk of falling on CFL fans at Hamilton's new Tim Hortons Field stadium, in addition to the one that fell last week.

One speaker fell 30 metres last week and rolled 26 rows through the empty stands at the stadium, built by the province for last summer's Pan Am games.By the end of the week, the city hired and brought in an engineering firm to check "anything up in the air" at risk of falling including speakers, lights and the scoreboard.

Somebody stamped those drawings who shouldn't have.- Coun. Lloyd Ferguson

They found seven other speakers with cracked brackets, similar to the one that fell.

"You don't even want to think about the consequences of this falling on someone," , says Lloyd Ferguson,Ancastercouncillorand head of the city committee that dealt with the stadium construction.The speakers weighed about 68 kilograms (150 pounds).

Not only were there bracket problems, he said, but they should have been tethered better by a thick chain or cable, and weren't.

• Engineers check 'anything in the air' at stadium after speaker crashes into stands

It raises a lot of questions, he said. The city is trying to determine which stage this happened at in the construction.

That includes checking log books, quality control plans, said Rom D'Angelo, the city's director of facilities.

"Somebody stamped those drawings who shouldn't have," Ferguson said.

The city is installing temporary speakers in their place. They'll be up by Friday, whenthe Hamilton Tiger-Cats have their first home (preseason) game, D'Angelo said.

Of the faulty speakers, five out of the eight had cracks on the bracket. The remaining three showedsigns of stress that would lead to cracks.

In terms of the speaker that fell, "both the backet and safety cable failed," D'Angelo said.

The project has been an ongoing headache for the city, which wasn't involved in building it. Infrastructure Ontario (IO) headed up the $145-million project and hired Ontario Sports Solutions (ONSS), a construction consortium.

Construction started in 2013 and was supposed to be finished by June 2014. But there were numerous delays, causing the Ticats to play part of a season at McMaster University and nearly miss the Labour Day Classic with the Toronto Argonauts.

Eventually the ribbon was cut, and the city took ownership of the stadium. But a year later, the city says there are still deficiencies, including obstructed seat views. And notices of legal action are flying between the city, the Ticats and IO.

The engineering firm will work until July to inspect all the required "in the air" items. The city is also hiring an outside firm to finish the remaining work. It's using $6.5 million it held back from IO from the city's $60 million share.

As for the Ticats, the teamhas hired a consultant to calculate itslosses and money spent making up for things that were supposed to be in place.