They were spending like the proverbial drunken sailor on the good ship Burlington Monday past.
Sixty million loonies for the hospital.
More money – perhaps $9 million – for the former General Brock school property.
Pan Am commitments toward City Park near Waterdown which will, history tells us, be way over cost estimates as is the norm with multi-event games.
But like that sailor our self-professed parsimonious pols were in seventh heaven over their spending spree or so it appeared to this channel surfing blogger who had earlier succumbed to too many Christmas specials and Tiger updates.
Councillor D’Amelio patiently explained to observers and your obviously misinformed correspondent that the media has it wrong because the big projects almost always come in under budget.
That and the season undoubtedly account for all the happiness and comes as a great relief as I had worried that nobody knew where all the money to pay for these projects would be found.
PAN AM GAMES
Taking the Sherwood Park location off the table means the Games site is narrowed down to one option - which is really no option, isn’t it?
City Park’s development needs approval from the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC) who have designated the land for recreation uses and facilities.
The NEC Plan assumes that any development will have “minimal adverse effect on the environment” and “not exceed the carrying capacity of the site.”
So as I mentioned everyone was so happy with the site and excited about all the money to be spent on this and other projects. You’d have to be a real pessimist to imagine that approval for a stadium, two lit artificial turf fields, one additional field, and lots of bells and whistles adjacent to a Natural Environment area, an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI) and 3,000 homes won’t be all wrapped up before the Seaway closes for the season.
1 comment:
I thought the way they were going to pay for all these things was by giving us cap on tax increases for 2010, but that they couldn't say if taxes would go up after the election, er, um, I mean after 2010.
What a price we pay for these people having their names etched in stone for posterity.
Sad.
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