The numbers just don’t add up.
More than 6,000 residents in Brantford were on EI last month (a drop from the last few months, but still double from a year ago). The number on social assistance topped 2,000. And the local food bank will hand out a new high of 2,700 Christmas hampers next week.
Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre
On top of that, the city lost about 100 small- and medium-sized businesses over the last year. If you drive around the industrial parts of town, you’ll see dozens and dozens of For Sale signs in front of empty factories, warehouses and businesses.
Yet, city politicians seem to be on a spending and handing-out-money spree.
Here’s some numbers:
- Brantford is spending about $15 million to expropriate a dilapidated two-block stretch of Colborne Street.
- It will cost another $2 million to tear down the buildings. The city hopes a higher level of government will kick in half, but hasn’t got any promise yet.
- The price tag to build four new ice rinks at the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre was supposed to cost $39 million, with one third, or $13 million, coming from the city (Ottawa and Queen’s Park putting up the rest).
- That project is $11 million over budget only months after it began, meaning it will cost at least $50 million in total. And don’t expect Ottawa or the province to come to the rescue.
- Upgrading the Gretzky aquatics centre will cost another $9.6 million, with the city again paying one third. Luckily, that project isn’t over budget.
- Then there’s Mohawk College, which wants the city to put in $2 million for its $10-million project to buy the historic Expositor newspaper building and turn it into classrooms.
- And, last but not least, the city will probably be asked to chip in to build the planned $42-million recreation centre that Laurier Brantford and the YMCA wants to put on part of the expropriated Colborne Street property. That project failed to get a federal infrastructure grant.
Add that all up — check the math for yourself — and the city will be coughing up possibly $46 million. That’s assuming it will have to pay for the cost overruns but won’t have to give Laurier-YMCA anything.
And let’s not forget that this comes at a time when the council vows to stick to a zero per cent budget for 2010, since the politicians say they understand residents are hurting in this recession.
Some of these projects do have value — the Gretzky centre needs updating and is embarrassing to its namesake – and you can’t turn down infrastructure dollars.
Maybe I should apologize for being so dense, but how is the city going to pay for all this and keep its 0% promise at the same time? Either taxpayers will have to pay through the nose next year, or the city will borrow the money and make us pay for many years to come. That’s painful either way.
There is an alternative. Someone could stand up and say that we just can’t afford all this right now. Someone could stand up and say the numbers don’t add up.
