It’s your Budget Council…
STOP blaming others for your spending and waste!

One of the many lies that helped get this Council elected was the ongoing complaint regarding the funding of the Twin Pad Arena we all now enjoy.

discussing who was to blame for the mistake

During the election in 2022, they complained that the 60 Million Dollar Project was taken on in haste and that their main concern was that Council should have held out until government funding from other sources was available.

There are three very specific arguments against this criticism and they are as follows:

This was not a project simply based on wants. We actually needed a new arena (reports on towns website) and we had outgrown our library years earlier.
There simply was no funding available from outside government sources. Funding was applied for, but none received. Instead a careful assessment was done to confirm the town could afford moving forward with a reasonable tax increase planned to fund future debenture payments. The balance was paid using reserves that had been saved for years for this actual purpose.
By making the decision at the time they did (COViD related), our Council took advantage of a construction environment where no major builds were happening in the province and despite Covid supply chain issues, material costs had still not sky-rocketed.

By acting when and how they did, our Council ensured a couple of often overlooked aspects of the build. First, if the same structure were built today it would cost 30-35 Million Dollars More. (Confirmed by the project management company that oversaw our build)

Next, the Council of the day chose to proceed with a fixed price contract. This contract even had an adequate contingency fund, in case there were necessary modifications to the specifications. Material availability or design issues could be addressed. This ensured the project would advance within budget.

There was so much money left in the budget, the current Council chose to spend hundreds of thousands on the arena floor to be used for their concerts. Side note: They now complain that an irrigation system was not included in the design. Well, neither was the arena floor. The current Council made those decisions.

Despite all of the information above, the campaign teams emphasized that building the TPAL was a bad decision. After winning the election, our current Council doubled down on their accusations of a poor decision to proceed and this is where the real tragedy unfolds.

Their first two budgets while in power should have reflected the reasonable tax increase laid out in the financial plan attached. However, they wanted to hire, hire, hire! They wanted to conceal this wasteful spending.

Friends were being rewarded with newly created high paying positions and instead of detailing those expenses, they continued yelling out loud that the Twin Pad Arena was the sole cause of our massive tax increases.

It is simply NOT TRUE!

The TPAL was a difficult but important decision made by dedicated a Council. Because of their decisions, we have an incredible facility talked about by all who visit.

It has already proven to be an incredible economic driver with talk of hotels moving to town and an increase in usage of both the library and the arenas.

Every time one of Brian Smiths supporters throws out the “no provincial funding” complaint and claims all of our tax woes are based on the TPAL, remember that the 20 Million Dollar Road improvement project underway during these tax increases had NO financial assessments and had NO “applications” even for funding. At the same time that the 30 Mill Debenture for the TPAL was blamed for the tax increase, there was NO mention of the 20 Mill River Road West project.

When they point out that we will be paying for this far into the future, remember that the costs in the future will be shared by new tax payers who will also be using the facility. This very reason is why capital projects are the only things municipalities are “allowed” to borrow for. But also remember… there are legislated limits and we have always stayed within those limits.

Most importantly… look carefully at the massive increases in payroll obligations since this Council has taken office. THAT IS WHERE YOUR REAL TAX INCREASES COME FROM!

Wasteful Spending!
Favours for friends!
Party, Party, Party!

These are the things truly influencing your massive tax increases. Just pause and ask the question when they launch the next volley of blame.

I expect a major emphasis of the blame game this year will focus on the MPAC assessments being frozen. That complaint is ludicrous and we will discuss that further another day.

Maybe if our Mayor actually lived in Wasaga Beach, these things would matter more to him.

They don’t make this report easy to find. How hard would it be to actually publish it alone, outside of a massive agenda package?

Scroll to page 145 of the attached report.

https://wasagabeach.civicweb.net/document/22524/