Dwight Duncan, Ontario's Minister of Finance will have a bird. No wonder he has not said a word about Greenlink. The Federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, would see his budget surplus drop precipitously. He needs the money to buy voters across Canada to earn a majority Government.
It is the funky bus terminal all over again. It is the Tunnel Ventilation building all over again. No, I will not talk about the arena, this time. Now it is the East End fire hall.
You saw the story:
- "Fire hall's price tag more than doubles
A new fire station proposed for Windsor's east end would cost more than double what city council believed five years ago because the original estimate is outdated, city council was told Monday.
Fire Hall 7 at Lauzon Road and Riverside Drive would cost $3.75 million, instead of the $1.83 million predicted in 2002, Chief Dave Fields told council during a capital budget meeting.
"The question that begs to be asked is why was the first number put in front of council if there was no science behind it," Mayor Eddie Francis asked Fields...
Fields said he provided an estimate as requested in 2002 but that since then prices have risen and fire hall standards have become more stringent."
Take a look at this from the City's Greenlink site.
We have to ask the question now that the Mayor has about the Fire Hall. Are the Greenlink numbers real in the first place or was there "no science" behind it? I have no idea.
Have they played a silly game again? Did our local politicians try to fool us again. Are they afraid to tell us the truth? Were they afraid that if they did, few people would have supported Greenlink in the first place?
Was the game to bring in the Greenlink costs at the same price as the DRIC road cost to show how smart our consultants are? Our consultants can build a road so much better than the DRIC consultants and at the same price we are told by our leaders. Well of course they are because they priced in 2007 dollars while DRIC priced in 2011 dollars I have been told.
So if we take the examples of the bus terminal or the ventilation building or now the fire hall, we can see that the cost of Greenlink, assuming the numbers are valid today, can be as high as $3 billion!
Citizens would have known that Greenlink was a nonstarter with that kind of number. They would have seen it as it really is: nothing but a stall device to put pressure on the Ambassador Bridge Company.
It is time now for people to get real about the border. It is time now for people to get realistic about the border. It is time now for Eddie and Windsor City Council to grow up and stop playing games as this City is being destroyed day by day by their immaturity and silliness.
Thousands of high-paying jobs are at stake as is the future of our City. It is time that we demanded better from our municipal leaders and got it. If they cannot, then the Senior Levels better! Let our Council talk about cats and dogs instead.
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