With the City of Moose Jaw’s agreement with Carpere Canada in jeopardy, council voted to make up for infrastructure funding lost in the deal.

Part of the agreement was for Carpere paying a percentage for water infrastructure to SaskPower’s power plant and the South East Industrial Park in general.

The city estimated the cost to design and construct the water infrastructure at about $9.27 million, with SaskPower responsible for 70 per cent of the cost, or $6.4 million.

The remaining $2.7 million was supposed to be covered by Carpere. However, they have completed their due diligence and did not remove conditions meaning the agreement is void.

“While we were not successful on the agreement at this point in time and there are still negotiations ongoing, we need to move forward,” said city manager Jim Puffalt. “We have an obligation to SaskPower to service that site.”

With the agreement with SaskPower, the city is left with 75 acres of serviced land that is for sale right now.

A motion was made that the city’s share of the SaskPower Servicing Agreement be funded from the land development funds with that money being reimbursed from the future land sales in the industrial park and that $2.7 million in funding be withdrawn from the moderate term pool of invested funds.

The motion passed 6-1 with Coun. Brian Swanson opposed.

There was some concern among councillors about selling investments considering the plunge the stock markets took this week.

“First of all, it’s not proposed to take the funding out of the equities at this point in time, I think that would not be a wise decision,” Puffalt said.

“This is saying at some point in time we have to make that decision, that’s not today. We haven’t even had the engineering consulting firm chosen and started yet.”

Coun. Dawn Luhning, who sits on the investments committee, clarified that there are other assets in the moderate term pool including bonds.

Mayor Fraser Tolmie said the situation is unfortunate, but having the agreement with SaskPower can be used as a bridge to sell the industrial park. He said most companies want land that is serviced and can be built on right away, and the city continues to be unprepared and left scrambling.

“The $1.1 million that we got from the provincial and federal governments to spend on the industrial park, last minute when we should have spent it ahead of time, so that we were prepared and that we were readily available to sell to people who are interested in coming to the City of Moose Jaw,” Tolmie said.

A motion was also passed that the overall cash flow for the project of $9.27 million would be provided through the city’s operating funds with SaskPower repaying within 90 days.