City council votes for legal review of fire hall audit

Winnipeg city council has voted for alegal review of the fire hall audit to determine potential illegal activity by the civic administration.

The motion was introduced by Coun. Dan Vandal on Wednesday.

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He wants to see the entire audit, that examined a controversial land swap deal that involved fire halls,sent to an outside law office that specializes in the law of competitive public tendering process to see if there's anything legally wrong with what occurred at the city.

He urged other councillors to vote for that motion.

"I think it's incumbent on us as elected officials and leaders of the city to go that extra step to begin to continue the rebuilding of public confidence in city hall," Vandal told council.

Theaudit, conducted byErnst and Young,did not detect anything illegal, but the report did find contracts were awarded to development companyShindicoon a non-competitive basis and deliberate moves were made to keep the dealout of the hands of city council.

Council also voted to make public all reports the city's executive policy committee received on the fire hallconstruction and land deal.

Meanwhile PhilSheegl, the former City of WinnipegCAO, has resigned from all civic boards on which he was a member.

Mayor SamKatztold council on Wednesday thatSheeglsent his notice via an email on Tuesday evening.

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Katzrevealed the news after two councillors put forth a motion to haveSheeglremoved from the board for the Winnipeg Convention Centre, Winnipeg Civic Employees Benefits Plan, Winnipeg Police Board, andBBB Stadium Inc., the non-profit organizationresponsible for building Investors Group Field.

Sheeglstepped down from the position of chief administrative officer for the city on Oct. 17, just four days before thedamning audit was released.

The report directly implicatedSheeglin many of the issues with the fire hall deal, which had come under heavy scrutiny by councillors, the public and the media, before eventually being scrapped.

How the deal worked

The fire hall saga began in 2012 when news surfaced that former fire chief Reid Douglas had made a deal with localdeveloperShindicoto swap three city owned pieces of land for a parcel on Taylor Avenue.

In the deal, the city would trade two vacant fire halls and a city-owned parcel of land onMulveyAvenue for a parcel of land on Taylor, where a new fire station would be built.

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City council was never notified of the deal and ended up quashing it.

By the time city council nixed the deal, though, construction on the Taylor fire hall was almost complete.

Now, a fire hall sits on land still owned byShindico, and the city is on the hook for the price of the land.

Ernst and Young was commissioned to write the external review of the controversial deal after Mayor SamKatzadmitted mistakes had been made in the tendering process for the fire halls.

The company was tasked with finding out if the city was getting the best possible bang for its buck in the land swap, and if city practices had been followed.

But before the report could be released, Douglas was fired andSheeglquit.

Douglas was fired in late September, but city officials have not said if it was tied to the land deal.

Sheegl had originally defended the land swap deal.