A Pot Of Gold

Tim the Enchanter's idea for use of the Hydro Sale Asset Fund is actually the second proposal received.

First dibs came from the Chief Financial Officer during budget discussions.

Borrowing twenty million of the fund was  proposed. The fund is now named s Council's Discretionary Reserve .. I'm not sure of the reason for the change.

Twenty million dollars is proposed to be spent on re-design of the barely twenty year old town hall..Changes are  to accommodate among other things, the Customer Service Plan introduced that itself cost a bundle with no evidence of customer dis-satisfaction.

There's apparently not enough space to accommodate  staff and  paraphernalia we have now .

We leased the Hydro building to the Department of National Defense. We were using it for storage of archives .I daresay it all had to be brought back to the town hall when we vacated to accommodate  ten year  lease of the Hydro building .

The parks department were making good use of the facility  at the time. They  had to be turfed.as well. 

Remember, the lease had to be kept confidential because of National Security. I understand there is no termination clause which I do not believe is legal in municipal law.

DND  have apparently made alterations to our building but  Council hasn't been informed about that. It  probably has to do with the nation's security.

You may  remember a consultant's statement I related. At our first meeting,the woman opened her remarks  with the incredible pronouncmenmnt  the almost new  town hall  had  been built without contemplating future needs . 

A remark like that only carries weight when the people at the table  know nothing. They expect people paid big dollars to advise will  advise.  ..

God Bless them, they don't even know what they don't know. Naturally they feel safer with advice from professionals  rather than the lone politician familiar with history and process.

My input. is not exactly dismissed.  Some wait  for enlightenment like a bolt from the heavens to determine the truth.

The next step of the plan was a recommendation to BORROW  twenty million dollars  from the Hydro Asset Sale Reserve fund

I can't stop them  I  have one vote.But actually that decision was not made.

If I tell you then you can tell  them what you think of the plan.You have that right.

When the town hall was built,  growth was certainly  foreseen. The town's  boundaries have not changed. Substantial parcels have been removed from development potential.

The town turned down an offer from the Region of  increased servicing allocation which would have allowed for higher  population.

We are within fourteen thousand  people of  total build-out.

We have staff occupied  completely  with the business of growth.

When growth is complete , there will be staff redundancy..

That was   foreseen when  the decision was made to accommodated present needs  with contract personnel. . This year, we changed two contracts to full time complement. and finagled another one.
 No real reason wasoffered for the change in direction
.Like they never understood the direction in the first place.

To-morrow I will discuss Tim The Enchanter's idea of distributing the hydro asset fund amongst the taxpayers.And why that's a crazy idea.