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A new asphalt path through Queen Elizabeth Park is already cracking after one Edmonton winter, the city’s audit committee heard Monday.

The $1.4-million project is also over budget and running behind after crews discovered the long-abandoned foundations of a brewery in their way.

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But city officials said the real issue isn’t that a mistake was made. It’s that their project manager thought he would fix it by ordering 17 quality assurance tests for $500 each on a 200-metre stretch of path rather than working with the contractor to make sure the path was correct from the beginning.

“It is about changing the culture,” said Adam Laughlin, head of the new infrastructure department created last fall to ensure best practices across the organization. “It’s a culture on being proactive around everything and anything we’re doing.”

The Queen Elizabeth Park project had challenges from the beginning. The job was given to the lowest bidder, with little assessment of its ability to do the work, because of a clerical error in the tendering process. Left out was the clause requiring companies to be pre-qualified.

That’s one reason why the project manager was concerned from the beginning about the quality of the pavement. City officials need to be working with contractors from Day 1 to make sure they know how their work is going to be evaluated, to address concerns as they emerge, said Jason Meliefste, branch manager for facilities and landscape infrastructure.