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A second new area of inquiry put forward by Walters is about creating an advisory board for major projects, one with seasoned experts in areas such as design, engineering, project management and procurement, who can help guide Laughlin, Cochrane and other city managers and also lend advice to city council.

“I see incredible benefit in some more oversight and some more collaboration (with) outside experts who are probably willing to help us get things right,” Walters says. “It’s basically a second set of eyes.”

Laughlin likes the ideas. On the Walterdale Bridge, he says an advisory board might have highlighted the risk of going with an overseas steel contractor and what the implications of a delay might be.

A problem on the Metro Line is that instead of having one contractor that was entirely responsible for all aspects, it had two — one to build the line, the other to build the signalling system. It was always going to be a challenge to blend the old signalling technology with new tech, but an advisory board might well have pointed out having one contractor answerable for all issues would have been preferable, Laughlin says.

The city already has volunteer advisers on other projects, such as business leaders who regularly give advice about the Blatchford redevelopment, Walters says.

Indeed, the Blatchford advisory group has helped keep city administration’s eyes on the real prize of Blatchford, creating a green, net-zero community, as opposed to Blatchford being the testing ground for numerous other utopian visions, such as it becoming a social housing mecca. As Walters puts it: “It’s wise that Blatchford is not a Frankenstein of everything that is possibly amazing about the future.”

A Frankenstein of a Blatchford would indeed be a killer for city council’s infrastructure ambitions. Folks are already plenty restless with the screw-ups on the bridges, the LRT and our initial bike lanes fiasco. More of the same and it’s not just city managers who will be fired; it will be voters electing new faces on council.

dstaples@postmedia.com