Almost 40 city witnesses for inquiry into slippery Red Hill so far

The cost of a public inquiry into Hamilton's Red Hill Valley Parkway has reached $13.2 million.

And the price tag is still expected to land somewhere between $18 million and $20 million, lawyer Eli Lederman told council Wednesday.

So far, 39 city witnesses alone have been identified for the hearing that's scheduled to start April 25 and is likely to run for months, he noted.

When the hearing begins, the public will have an opportunity to see the list of witnesses that are being called to testify," said Lederman, a partner with Lenczner Slaght appointed to represent the city.

In 2019, council voted to ask a judge to probe the circumstances of a troubling asphalt friction-testing report on the crash-prone parkway that had been buried for years.

When the hidden road friction tests surfaced, the city undertook an emergency repaving. A $250-million class-action lawsuit was also launched against the city.

In a public update Wednesday, Lederman said the commission's legal team had completed nearly 50 interviews resulting in about 300 hours.

Moreover, about 126,000 documents have been submitted, of which 72,000 are relevant" ones the city produced, he added.

The commission's legal team, meanwhile, has asked for more documents, Lederman noted.

The city has asked for a separate ruling on whether 87 municipal documents can be shielded by legal privilege" and withheld from the inquiry and public evidence.

Last week, inquiry counsel Rob Centa told The Spectator the city waived" the right to withhold such documents by asking for the probe led by Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel.

In our view, the remaining disputed documents are all necessary for the work of the inquiry," Centa said.

The city only wants to withhold documents that are related to legal opinions and advice," spokesperson Matthew Grant said, noting all fact-based documents" had been submitted.

The city has requested Wilton-Siegal appoint a designate" to deliberate on the dispute in a private hearing.

On Wednesday, council received Lederman's brief overview in open session.

This is a high-price, high-profile inquiry and I think we owe it to our community at large to provide as much information in a public way as is available," Mayor Fred Eisenberger said.

Council later ducked into a private session to discuss two inquiry updates before emerging to cast majority votes to keep the information confidential.

Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com