Million Dollar Mistake Explained - Dec 15 Energy and Infrastructure Committee Meeting
Kelly here
Cancellation of the Dec 1 meeting was due to Managing Director Brad Maynes being ill. He attended remotely today as did most of the rest, only 3 people showed up in person.
I did not get to ask any questions of staff as they all logged off at the end of the public meeting. I did hear some very interesting things.
Invest Medicine Hat (IMH)
#IMH has now moved into the new City building across the street from City Hall at 533 1st St SE.
IMH’s previous location on 4th St was costing the City just over
$5000/ mth in rent
& about
$2900/ mth in operational costs (not explained)
This is on TOP of the $830,000 they spent over 2019-2020 to pay for “office improvements”.
The furniture from the 4th ST location is being repurposed.
(It sounds like IMH is being absorbed into other departments. Kelli Ireland (IMH/Orka) already has a new title, announced at the Public Services Committee Meeting Dec 12. She is a Corporate Communications Specialist.)
$1,000,000 F—k Up
Unit 15 Hot Section Replacement
Briefing Note is on page 2 of the Agenda Packet
Background - the LM6000 gas turbine from Unit 15 was sent to GE in Houston last fall to be rebuilt at a cost of $4.2 million and was to be used a spare.
Briefing Note pg 1 - Source Dec 1 2022 Energy and Infrastructure Committee Meeting Agenda Packet
Briefing Note pg 2 - Source Dec 1 2022 Energy and Infrastructure Committee Meeting Agenda Packet
Funding Request - Source Dec 1 2022 Energy and Infrastructure Committee Meeting Agenda Packet
Mr Maynes explained in more detail than the Briefing Note provided as to how the turbine was damaged. The damage occurred AFTER it was unloaded by the crane company and the straps removed, at which point the turbine was the COMH’s responsibility.
The substructure the turbine was placed on
FAILED
It dropped about 10 cm causing the damage.
I don’t know how many engineers the City employs but did nobody think to send somebody out to see if the substructure for the turbine was sufficient for a multi million dollar machine of this size, weight and configuration?
Nobody was injured (thankfully). That is one thing we can ALL be grateful for.
The turbine is back at GE in Houston right now, ready to be tested next week, it should be back here by EOY or early 2023.
This wasn’t just
this was more like negligence.
Council keeps talking about “running it like a business”.
Well, in the private sector someone would have been fired. Management FAILED as evidenced by them changing their procedures so this doesn't happen again but it never should have happened in the first place.
We CANNOT afford #MillionDollarMistakes.
#kasosumh #communitytv #IMH #LM6000 #turbine #yxh #yxhpower #medicinehat
