MNBC Announces Big Property Purchase But Tells Only Part of the Story
(May 25, 2024) Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC) has announced another big property purchase – this time in Terrace, but their release this past week only tells part of the story. They may not have wanted to get into too many details because their last property purchase back in early 2022 in the same city resulted in a $270,000 loss.
But first the latest purchase - on May 23, 2024 MNBC announced “the successful completion of the purchase of 4617 Greig Avenue in Terrace” and then it goes onto say “The property, totaling 4.2 acres and nearly a full city block, represents the first of three adjoining parcels that MNBC intends to acquire in Terrace.”
In actual fact, the property that MNBC has purchased is only 2.842 acres, and as usual MNBC fails to reveal the purchase price in their release, but the property at 4617 Greig Avenue was assessed at $1.136 million last year and listed for sale with a price tag of $1.73 million. From another source the purchase price is being reported as $1.27 million. The MNBC release also mentions “MNBC is actively engaged in environmental remediation efforts to ensure the safety and integrity of the sites…” Remediation usually occurs when there are contaminated soils. They don’t say how much that is expected to cost, but removing contaminated soils can be a very expensive process.
Through our research, we also have discovered that the MNBC Board of Directors in February of this year approved a $3 million contract with a company to develop the site and build a modular childcare centre. So now we can estimate the cost of the project, including the land purchase to be more than $4 million. And what happens if the costs of cleaning up the contaminated soils are more than they have estimated? Who is on the hook for that?
In addition to MNBC itself not revealing how much they paid for the property, for some odd reason the MNBC release also fails to say how many childcare spaces are planned and what else the property is going to be used for. Why the big secret?
This is the second property MNBC has purchased in Terrace. In early 2022 this MNBC Board purchased property at 2812 Tetrault Street for purposes of combined residential, offices and daycare space, but it happened to be right beside a permanent homeless shelter. In February 2022 they bought the property for $870,000 and sold it just two months ago for $600,000 incurring a $270,000 loss.
So here’s some key questions –
Clara Morin Dal Col asks, “Why does this Board have such a problem with giving the full picture to MNBC Citizens?” She says, “This is not the Board’s own personal money. They have a fiduciary duty to give MNBC Citizens the full story, and they haven’t.”
Ms. Morin Dal Col, who is seeking the Presidency in the MNBC General Election in September says, “When you purchase any property that requires remediation you need to have your homework done by a professional firm well in advance, because it can end up costing hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars to clean it up before it is safe to use.”
Ms. Morin Dal Col says, “I am in favour of investing dollars for childcare spaces to help out our Métis families, but we need the full story on this project in Terrace.”
The former MNBC President says, “This Board lost $270,000 of MNBC Citizen money because of a decision they made to purchase property that was not in a good location. So who is taking responsibility for that decision?”
She adds, “We need fiscal transparency and openness by this Board regarding the expenditure or commitment of millions of dollars on various projects and we are not getting it. They haven’t even posted an annual operating budget in two years. They are failing to uphold their fiduciary duty and their Code of Conduct to MNBC Citizens”
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For information about members of the Clara Morin Dal Col Team click on the link below:
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