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Court orders Pincourt to pay $3 million in arena case
Town to decide whether to appeal
Alycia Ambroziak
The Gazette
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Pincourt municipal council is awaiting legal advice on whether to appeal a Quebec Superior Court ruling ordering the town to pay almost $3 million regarding the town’s unfinished recreation centre.
“We are currently studying the situation with our legal advisers to determine whether any avenue of appeal might be open to us,” Mayor Yvan Cardinal said in a message on the town’s website.
“Given the circumstances, you will understand that we will be unable to comment further on these judgments.
“However, we promise to keep you informed of any measures undertaken in order to favour complete openness,” concluded the mayor’s message, which was delivered at the December council meeting.
Work on the $5.3-million recreation centre on Pincourt Blvd. began in early 2003. The centre would have housed an arena and would have been used as a venue for shows during the off season, said town spokeswoman Danielle Carbonneau.
But now it stands half finished and unused.
In his message, Cardinal noted that work on the recreation centre stopped in December 2003, due to an unresolved dispute between the main parties involved in the project, which had been sponsored by a private, non-profit organization called Complexe sportif et culturel régional Île Perrot, administered in part by Robert Brissette and the town’s general manager, Michel Perrier.
According to the court document, the unresolved dispute involved accusations going back and forth on a myriad of things, including modifications made to the project, meetings held without all interested parties present, onsite co-ordination meetings stopped without explanation, payment delays and work stoppages and rising costs.
When work on the project stopped, the subcontractors took legal action against the project contractor, Construction Cogerex, who, in turn, took action against the administrators of the non-profit organization as well as the National Bank of Canada, which had helped finance the deal. The National Bank took legal action against the town in an effort to obtain payment of various sums of money.
In 2004, the city adopted a resolution to sell the building and land due to unpaid taxes, but Cogerex opposed the move as did the National Bank. Similar wranglings took place in 2005 and 2006.
Cardinal, who was not mayor when the events occurred, said that in the 72-page judgment issued last November, Superior Court Judge Lise Matteau ordered Construction Cogerex to pay $1.4 million to its subcontractors.
The judgment, said Cardinal, also ordered the “Town of Pincourt to jointly pay to Construction Cogerex ... the amount of $1.1 million ... and orders the town of Pincourt to pay the National Bank of Canada an amount exceeding $1.8 million.”
“Some form of legal training is required to understand the ins and outs of this highly complicated matter, even more so for myself as the new mayor, since I was not involved in this matter, either directly or indirectly,” said Cardinal, who was elected mayor in November, replacing long-time mayor Michael Kandyba.
Carbonneau said she did not know when to expect a report from the town’s legal counsel.
“What will happen with that, we simply don’t know,” she said.
If that was regularr
If that was regularr taxpayer with a home and car the city/bank would scoop it up and you would be on the street. Looks good on them! They should all lose there jobs,no matter what the taxpayers will have to deall with the three million!!