Work done to date on the foundation of a new fire hall being built on North Road puts the work at “2.4 per cent complete”, Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District (GFPID) Fire Trustee and Treasurer Sandra Rudischer laughingly reported Oct. 3.

Rudischer, who was updating the GFPID board at their meeting at Fire Hall #1 on the financial progress of the build, said the LARK Group, the general contractor that is in charge of building a new fire hall for Gabriola, has received its first financial draw.

Rudischer said she was impressed with how the progress certificate for the first outlay of $89,606.77 was presented. It came from architects Johnston Davidson Architecture + Planning Inc., she said, and included a letter from Work Safe BC confirming that LARK is in good standing with them. It also had a letter from Herald Engineering saying that LARK’s report on the work done to date “accurately represents current onsite progress”, she said.

Rudischer said she was pleased to see the level of detail with which the progress of the building is tracked.

Building committee Chair Albert Reed said the construction of the fire hall is ahead of schedule, despite “a few glitches at start-up” caused when the board made their decision to choose LARK as their general contractor so quickly that the project manager LARK originally proposed for the job was still on holidays when they started building. So Reed made sure to be onsite every day, he said, to make sure everything went smoothly under the guidance of new Project Manager Stephen Miller. Reed said he has “a lot of confidence” in Miller, having spoken to him and seen his resume.

Reed added that Victoria resident and Project Coordinator Trevor Webber is renting a place in Nanaimo for easy access to Gabriola. He said Gabriolan Kelly Brooks is the project superintendent. He said Brooks’ responsibilities are to ensure “that the place is secure”. He added that a “health, safety, and environmental” geotech engineering firm has been separately hired. He said they have been “keeping an eye on all the concrete pours and things like that”.

A location for a new well has also been witched and approved by officials, Reed said. Fire trustees resolved that an old well that is not producing be capped and a new well be drilled.

Fire trustees also agreed to apply for connections to hydro, Telus, and Shaw.

In other GFPID finance news, the board approved next year’s budget. Rudischer said there was “basically no change” from last year, and the budget sits again at $912,545. She said although they did a bit of juggling of line items, “the budget is exactly the same as it was last year, so there won’t be any changes to the taxes”.