I’ve lost count how many times in this term of council I’ve written about how council has received a recommendation from administration, and decided to do the complete opposite.
This is the same administration that works hard to figure out a path for the city, financial implications of decisions, and always keeping a watchful eye on the city’s budget. This administration is filled with a lot of really smart people that are paid a lot of money to work diligently to give the best advice to council to help them make the right decision. As it is often mentioned, they serve at the will of council.
Last night, they were ignored. Again.
This city council was voted on a platform of fiscal responsibility, a new era of council…new blood that will take the city in a new direction. A mixture of new Councillors and the old guard, this council has struggle at times to be on the same page. They weren’t again last night. But majority rules. Councillor Cody Fraser, mentioning his limited experience on council and his age group – often – asked (loosely quoted) ‘why does every decision have to be about money?’ The Councillor should ask his constituents if at the dinner table they ever talk about decisions pertaining to money. The answer may surprise him and educate him a little bit – because every decision is in fact, about money, in a normal household. Councillor Shelby Ch’ng, who also pontificated about her age and demographic admitted that because of her age she has a ‘higher tolerance’ for taking risks financially and that the decision last night was an easy one for her. Councillors Rebecca Johnson and Mark Bentz tried, desperately at times, to explain to council that they’ve seen this movie before – and come budget time we’ll be faced with some major decisions – some people will be hurt by them – and warned that we are heading down that path again because of a world wide pandemic. A pandemic that we haven’t lived through and has changed the world and the finances of municipalities in a dramatic way. They’re experience was ignored. Administration and CEDC’s knowledge was ignored – and now on August 24, your council will make the decision to put shovels to the ground and build an indoor turf facility, at Chapples Park.
Whenever the turf is mentioned on the show, I often get various forms of hate mail. ‘I don’t know what i’m talking about’, that i’m a ‘naysayer’, and one of my favourites “you don’t actually care about what people want, you care only about what you want”. Well let me go on record again to say that I think an indoor turf facility is a great idea. It could be a facility used by many. It should have the ability to host a trade show, it should have tennis courts, it should be available to every age and every income level, and we need to be able to afford it. Oh, and throw in there that i’m a bit cheap, often worry about money, and would rather have the help from a few other levels of government before putting a shovel in the ground. Call me crazy. I support the idea, I don’t support the timing.
A lot of the discussion last night surrounded borrowing the money for the turf, and what the financial implications of that would be. Administration presented that the cost of borrowing up to 15 million dollars would cost the average tax payer about $20 a month. It was that small piece of information that Councillor Albert Aiello latched on to. Over the course of his monologue about his support of the faculty, the Councillor said “20-bucks” about 40 times. Over and over and over again. His point – its only “20 bucks”. Councillor Trevor Giertuga made a strong point that we often here how much this cost us a day – the price of a coffee – the cost of one lunch per month etc etc – and that the argument that its ‘only 20 bucks’ isn’t valid because…(wait for it)…. we don’t actually know the cost of the facility. Keep in mind we started at 30 million, now we’re at 42 million, and you can pretty much hang your hat on the fact that it will be closer to, or over 50 million by the time it’s built. But to Councillor “it’s only 20 bucks”.
One of the highlights of the discussion was Councillor Rebecca Johnson swiping back at the Mayor about Councillors changing their minds and not regularly supporting big ticket, legacy projects. Councillor Johnson was quick to point out that not one Councillor spoke out against the project – they all agree it should be built. But as ‘the mom’ on council, and in my opinion one of the few that has the will to actually say no to spending money often, she understands what this looks like long term and how difficult the budget process is. She’s a lone wolf in most of the discussions about cuts – while the rest of this council race to put their name on the next cheque. Her points and concerns last night were valid. She was frustrated. She pointed out the city’s public feedback about the project was mostly focused on us not being able to afford it right now. Not forever – just not now. 76 pages of feedback. A good portion of it against spending the money. Also ignored last night.
Here’s what stood out the most to me last night. We have found us with a council that is divided – greatly. Even though they wouldn’t admit it, the age gaps around the table, the level of experience around the table and the personal agendas around the table are starting to get in the way. I’ve been told on more than one occasion privately that this is not a council of friends. There is tension, and at times a lot of it in closed session and in emails. I’ve seen some of the emails – they’re public record – and things get down right nasty. Decisions like last night make this divide worse. The speeches last night were long, drawn out, overly dramatic and a lot of the time completely irrelevant to the conversation and debate. Councillors are learning from others that your turn in a round of questions is a great soap box for you to spread your wisdom and get noticed. A lot of that fell flat last night – Councillor Andrew Foulds in one of the most dramatic speeches of the night spoke about how he struggled with the decision and even said he could still change his mind about it on Aug. 24. Other Councillors went on and on….and on about themselves….’the children’ and tried to make dramatic points to sway some votes to their side. Those speeches don’t sway people, their minds are made up. Those speeches are just for the cameras, in the hopes that everyone is watching the meeting on line or if they’re lucky, they’ll make it to a 3 minute TV news story about the meeting.
You might notice there’s something missing in the above…and it was missing a lot last night only to be brought up a few times by Councillors who get it. We. Are. In. A. Pandemic. No one, including those that think they have a crystal ball at the table, no one knows what’s next and what the results of Covid-19 actually are. Major sports are struggling to get it under control to play. No word on what local hockey looks like this fall, let alone what soccer or organized sports looks like 18 months from now. What if we’re in this for another year or two. What if there isn’t any organized sports by the time the new turf facility opens? What then? Who pays for that empty building? The FACT is that we don’t know. Period. That’s another reason for lightly pushing the brakes on the project, waiting to see what happens. A couple Councillors mentioned it – others were annoyed by the suggestion. That’s a scary thought.
Last night’s decision will go down in the history books as THE legacy decision by this term of council. This will be their building to put their name on and be proud of. Councillor Fraser mentioned that last night a majority of constituents in his ward are against this project and that his decisions may ‘hurt him politically’. It might. It probably will. But he won’t be alone. More people than we or they like to think pay attention to who voted for what. Let the record show that a strong majority voted against the city’s recommendation, again – and that a stronger majority of council voted to ignore the concerns and warnings from the CEDC – simply asking them to wait.
They didn’t wait. On August 24 they’ll vote to start digging. We won’t know until the next election if this is a hole this new fiscally responsible council will be able to dig themselves out of. Time will tell.
That’s my two cents.
~John