City has spent nearly $5M on Red Hill Valley Parkway Inquiry

The public hearing for the Red Hill Valley Parkway (RHVP) inquiry hasn't even started, and it's already cost the City of Hamilton nearly $5 million. 

A new report giving an update on the judicial inquiry into a damning friction report of the RHVP will go before the city's general issues committee on Wednesday. It shows the city has spent $4,801,131.05 on the inquiry so far.  

The public hearings are still estimated at being months away. They aren't expected to start, according to the report, until "later in the spring of 2021."

Following mounting public pressure, council voted for a judicial inquiry in March 2019 after a 2013 Tradewind Scientific report found that the asphalt friction in some areas of the RHVP fell well below UK safety standards. There aren't any similar standards in North America.

The city said the report was found in a locked computer folder after a new director of engineering was hired. 

Commissioner Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel will investigate how the report stayed buried. 

The commissioner chided the city in July for ongoing delays, which prompted them to deliver more than 55,000 documents needed to move forward.

The update says the commission counsel intends to request more information, and "significant resources" will be needed.

There isn't a time frame for when the request will come, but the city's representation says that "given the ongoing pandemic and the approaching holiday season, it may take some time" to get the information together. 

The commissioner is currently reviewing 10,000 documents from the province, according to the report, and expects to receive a tranche of approximately 7,000 more in the next few weeks.

Justice Wilton-Siegel can only start interviewing witnesses after receiving all necessary documents. A list of people that the commissioner wants to interview includes 36 current and former city employees. 

Costs for the inquiry stood at a near $2 million back in April, and $3 million in July. A city-hired lawyer warned last year that the final cost could amount to  a total of $11 million. 

In the report, the city's legal representation said "it is unlikely" that the cost of the Inquiry will be under $7 million. They will give an updated estimate once a time frame is set for the hearing.

They say "it is difficult" to estimate when that will be since the document portion has yet to be finished, but are currently expecting later in spring 2021. 

The expenses so far break down into the city's internal costs of about $97 thousand and outside legal costs of over $1.7 million. The commissioner's legal costs are over $2.2 million. 

The "other" category, which amounts to around $735,000, includes expenses like Deloitte services for data hosting and working with digitizing paper files. 

The city's external counsel say they'll continue using their services, but can't give an estimate of their fees since they don't know how many more documents will come forward and how many more the commissioner will request. 

Earlier in November, participants were given access to a database including 92,500 documents. Some still have to be reviewed by Wilton-Siegel before being added in.

The update was prepared by city solicitor Nicole Auty and Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP, which will represent the city during the inquiry.

The report says there are six stages of the inquiry:

• Hiring staff and figuring out logistics.
• Collecting documents. 
• Interviewing witnesses.
• Fielding public requests to participate in the inquiry with city funding. 
• Holding a hearing with witnesses.
• Drafting a final report. 

The city is paying for the inquiry from its tax stabilization reserve.

The city is also facing a $267-million class action lawsuit on behalf of people who crashed on the RHVP.