Red Hill Valley Parkway inquiry has cost $1.9M so far, hearing still months away

The judicial inquiry into a pavement friction report about the Red Hill Valley Parkway (RHVP) has already cost $1.9 million, and it's not at the hearing stage yet.

A new report coming to Hamilton city council Wednesday says the cost of the inquiry so far rests at $1,900,995.10. A city-hired lawyer warned last year that the final cost could be as much as $11 million.

For that reason, Mayor Fred Eisenberger said the latest figure is expected.

"It's a disappointing figure but not surprising," he said. "The original estimate was that if we get into this judicial review, the cost could get up to $10 or 11 million."

Council voted for a judicial inquiry last March after mounting public pressure. At issue is a 2013 Tradewind Scientific report and its finding that in some areas of the RHVP, the asphalt friction fell well below UK safety standards. There were no similar North American safety standards.

Last January, city council said it hadn't seen the report. It was found, the city said, in a locked computer folder after a new director of engineering was hired. The city has hired Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel to get to the bottom of it.

A lawyer from Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP said during the debate last March that an auditor general report was preferable because inquiries often go over budget and take more than a year and a half. 

Brenda Johnson, Ward 11 (Glanbrook) councillor, was one of two who voted to pursue the auditor general route instead.

"The reason I voted against this inquiry was the possibility that it would be done with a very high price tag," she said. "Unfortunately I have been proven correct."

The last public hearing regarding the inquiry was in February, when Wilton-Siegel ruled which of the nine applicants could make submissions at the hearing, which he expected would happen in September.

Robert Centa, the inquiry's lead counsel, said that target "no longer seems feasible." The inquiry is still waiting for the city and other participants to provide some key documents, he said. He hopes that will happen by the end of June. 

Even if it does, "that will not permit the inquiry time to take the necessary steps of reviewing those documents and interviewing potential witnesses in time for a September start to the public hearing," he said in an email.

"In addition, the pandemic and the sensible restrictions on public gatherings complicate both the work of all participants and the planning of public hearings."

The inquiry has several staff members, including a team of lawyers. The city has hired Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP to represent it during the inquiry, and has hired a legal services staffer on contract. The city is paying for all of this from its tax stabilization reserve.

So far, the city has spent $714,228.53 and the commissioner $1,141,883.33. "Other expenses" account for $44,883.24.

The council report from Nicole Auty, Hamilton's city solicitor, has two confidential appendices from Lenczner Slaght. 

The six stages of the inquiry, the report said, are as follows:

• Hiring staff and figuring out logistics.
• Collecting documents, including emails.
• Interviewing witnesses.
• Fielding public requests to participate in the inquiry and get city money for it.
• Holding a hearing with witnesses.
• Drafting a final report. 

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

City council meets at 9:30 a.m., and its meetings are broadcast live on the city's YouTube channel.