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See SPOT run
One of the more notable strengths of the County’s current senior leadership team is its demonstrated capacity to learn and adapt. These aren’t empty words offered lightly or to curry favour.
This column regularly casts its lens upon the smouldering and festering bits of the County’s business. It is useful, therefore, for readers to know when things go well—especially when the things going well may indicate a positive trend.
The Bloomfield Main Street project is nearly done. As a regular traveller through the village, it appears to have been done well and on time. Not without some bumps early on, mind you, but a massive improvement over the experience on the Wellington trunk lines project.
It is doubly noteworthy when leadership acknowledges past missteps and points to tangible evidence of change. This brings us to the new Special Projects Oversight Team, or SPOT. The SPOT is a new way to manage big infrastructure projects in Prince Edward County. It is an expanded project management group encompassing development services, engineering, road managers, communications and finance. Each discipline monitors large capital works through its own lens to ensure accountability along the way and to raise flags where needed.
“The SPOT is looking at projects more holistically in terms of their impact on the community and businesses,” explained Chief Administrative Officer Adam Goheen to Council last week. “One of the first implementations of this approach was on the Bloomfield connecting links project. Using lessons learned in Wellington and Bloomfield, we continue to build on that progress and momentum.”
The lessons from Wellington’s fiasco are numerous and still unfolding. Chief among them was a complete lack of coordination: between road construction crews and those managing detour routes; between project managers and municipal staff responsible for keeping residents and businesses informed about closures, water outages, and related disruptions; and in the absence of clear, up-to-date information on the total cost to complete the project.
There was also a disconnect between frontline staff handling day-to-day issues and elected officials fielding a constant stream of complaints. Residents were—and remain—in the dark about how this project was managed, who was responsible for what, and how long closures, noise, and disruption were expected to last.
Those who neither live nor work in the village tended to dismiss these experiences as normal—Main Street closed with little notice, water service disrupted without warning, and bedrock hammered by heavy equipment well past midnight for weeks on end.
The SPOT is a direct response to the failures in Wellington, according to the new CAO. It has become an object lesson on how not to do infrastructure work. It represents a clear break from how that project was managed and how information was shared, both internally and with the public. It is an acknowledgment that the trunk line project was mishandled— and that its lessons must be learned.
It is a start.
The Bloomfield project’s comparatively smooth management and minimal disruption suggest those lessons are being applied. It wasn’t just the construction that ran efficiently (for which the contractor deserves a large dollop of credit); the weekly updates also gave residents and businesses clear, timely insight into what to expect in the week ahead.
We will await a final judgment until the bill arrives and the last bits are completed—but the experience in Bloomfield suggests a new approach is taking hold.
It is important because two big projects are on deck. Excavation has begun for a new long-term care home in Picton. The 124,000-square-foot project is expected to cost about $83 million and will be finished next year.
Last week, County Council gave the green light to begin the rehabilitation of County Road 49.
Both are complicated projects that far exceed the boundaries of engineering or construction disciplines. They will put strains County finances, the lives of neighbours and commuters, and on other municipal infrastructure. We will need every bit of energy and commitment that SPOT can muster.
It’s all connected.
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