Could repair a lot of the roads around town for that kind of money. A waste of money imho

I totally agree acidrider. Especially after they wouldn't even look into Councilman Wilburs idea of adding on to the existing facility. Maybe Deputy Dan can rent them the Cadillac.

$46,630,000 is a range?? The range I see is between $46,635,000 and $46,625,000. That makes it a $10,000 difference.

Since when can anyone estimate with that degree of accuracy?

Let's say it is projected to cost between $46 and $47 million.

What is this bit about buying an offsite parking lot? How much land is this building that will probably house no more than about 100 people at any one given time gobbling up? What is the maximum number they can have employed before they need an addition?

I agree, its completely inappropriate for a city that is shrinking in size with horrendous road repair technology... anyone notice they even removed the population sign at 16&97 rather than admit to the lie any longer....

To borrow this kind of money and saddle future generations with the debt to satisfy the pet project of city employees is irresponsible IMO.

A consultant gets paid 1.2 million and the estimate is off by 24 million. Time for a new consultant and time for city council to come up with a new less costly plan before they bankrupt the tax paying citizens of PG.
A new high has been established in pot hole patching. At the corner of Ospika and Davis 1/2 a pot hole was patched. Maybe this is Dan's way to save money for future projects. Fix the roads first, then consider things like a new RCMP building and PAC.

This city lost a generation in the 90's to outward migration to anywhere but PG... thousands of bad will ambassadors for the city... I see it about to happen again. People aren't stupid and when they see a city mismanaged like drunken sailors, and these people will be stuck with the bill, and a lack of jobs to pay for it.... Basically nothing has changed much and its like the PG cycle.

I just read that part of the Council package. The debt payment for the RCMP is projected to be about $3.5/year for the next 20 years. At the present rate of taxation that makes it about 5% of the general tax requisition.

Watch taxes go up by that amount. No one is hlping to pay for this building. We are on the hook for this.

Based on past "sketches" of the building, it is a grandiose building for the RCMP. When did we move from the day when museums, art centres, libraries, churches, houses of parliament were grandiose buildings to police stations taking over that appearance?

That should be $3.5 million a year.

This presents a perfect opportunity to deep six the current plans for the station IMHO. The price tag has more than doubled (even though original amount was a substantial chunk of dough), we are in the middle of a serious recession, we have other priorities more important to the folks living here (namely roads) and there are still outstanding questions as to whether we need a brand new facility and/or whether the chosen localtion is the best spot to put it.

The 4.8 million already spent is gone. Treat it like the sunk cost that it is and let's revisit this once we have a COMPREHENSIVE plan for the downtown in place, one that will complement the eventual addition of a new RCMP station, PAC, etc. This will take time to develop and we shouldn't rush into it. In the meantime, let's take some of the original 20+ million that was intended for this project and invest it into our road infrastructure. I'd say spend the next little while figuring out exactly what it is the citizens want for downtown so that we can then mould any new development around that plan. I say no to ANY substantial new project in the downtown core until that is done. We already have too much patchwork development in the city. It's time to stop it and act in a more coordinated manner.

Oh yeah, and rip down that Quebec street eyesore ASAP.

Anyone know what the cost breakdown between different governments, local, provincial, feds. The local police also operate outside the city limits. Is regional district also throwing in money?

Wow...that's a huge number no matter how you cut it!
Another of those things that make you go...hmmmm.

I could be mistaken, but I thought the city was on the tab for the whole ball of wax for this particular facility given that it primarily serves the PG area. In essence, the city has chosen the RCMP to administer municipal policing services, hence the bill attributing to them.

I think the North District HQ building may have had various funding sources though.

Well, the existing building is too small for them anyway. So why not spruce up the existing structure and revamp it for $10million. Build two smaller stations, one up the Hart, and the other one at College Heights. We should be able to get away with only spending 20 million and end up with better overall coverage!

If they are going with one big station. Do it right. Don't build it for today only. Build it so that it can support a city of 150k. Build it so that it can expand on that site. Build it with 12 feet between floors , so in 20 years, if they need to re design it, there not whinning about it.

I wonder if there is any available land next door to the proposed RCMP building. Great location for a Tim Hortons. As a cost saving measure the members could walk to Timmies rather than drive. The city could operate it and put any profit made into paying down city debt. Then again, given the city manager's track record there will probably not be any profit and the taxpayer will end up subsidizing another city run facility.

I thought that the new mayor and the new councilors would do a thorough assessment of where this city is at, what the most urgent requirements are and what we can afford to do after we took care of the most pressing things.

The need for a larger RCMP building definitely exists and borrowing for it may be a good idea. As a property tax payer though I am worried by the spectre of the 61 million dollar PAC still looming in the background and if we add that to the cost of the new RCMP building we are looking at a cool 100 million dollars of new debt added to what the city owes already.

We really need to borrow about another 60 million bucks to once and for all address our broken streets and sidewalks by doing intensive repaving and new construction. Dan said so when he was still on city council.

Has he forgotten that already?

As is, we can't even get the myriad of potholes fixed and the streets swept properly.

As soon as the sun comes out the dust clouds are flying around as if we were living in the Sahara desert.

Nothing really is being done - lack of manpower, lack of money, lack of equipment, lack of planning, lack of enthusiasm...any of these or all of the above, who knows?

"The need for a larger RCMP building definitely exists and borrowing for it may be a good idea. As a property tax payer though I am worried by the spectre of the 61 million dollar PAC still looming in the background and if we add that to the cost of the new RCMP building we are looking at a cool 100 million dollars of new debt added to what the city owes already"

I thought the PAC was now in the 40-50M range but regardless, the scary thing is that when these projects were first discussed, they were both in the range of 20M each, for a total of 40M, and now we're approaching 100M for both. That's 1/10th of a BILLION dollars for TWO facilities? Simply ridiculous. Heck, even the 20M a piece was high enough that it should have required some serious consideration before jumping into it.

As a city I think we will eventually need a new (or rennovated) detachment and a PAC, but the kind of dough being talked about now is way beyond what I'd be comfortable with us taking on in addition to our existing debt load.

I know I've said it already, but I think we need to re-focus a bit and figure out excatly what our medium range plan is for the city and ensure our capital spending is aligned with that plan. For example, if we really do want to revitalize the downtown, the proposed location for the new detachment should be abandoned. Building it there would do nothing to enhance the downtown and in fact, it would make revitalization even more difficult, just like it did when the Mulltiplex and Aquatic Centre were put outside of the downtown core. That chunk of land is about as good as it will get for retail and/or higher density residential in the downtown core so it should be preserved for that.

City hall needs to take a step back on this before jumping ahead. The tunnel vision being displayed on some of these issues is staggering.

NMG, I agree, we do not need to build a 55 million dollar PAC. They built the exact same type of building in Burlington, Ontario for 22 million dollars. I think PAC needs to get there head around the fact that it is not a popular project.

The RCMP building. 30 million tops. That's it. no more money.

We the taxpayers need to get it across to council that this is what we want.

Let us not compare apples with oranges.

While all buildings built in the city MUST have a very close look at them from the point of view of affordability not only at this time but at all economic times, each building has a different impact on municipal taxes as well as on the benefit received by the buildings and the services they house.

We should look at five projects that are in the public eye at the moment, the police station, the library expansion, making Fourth Avenue “prettier”, the PAC, and Boundary Road. I would like to add River Road to that as well since there will likely be more outfall from that whole flooding scenario that we have not heard the conclusion about yet.

RCMP - no help with capital on that to speak of. It will not generate new jobs once the building is moved into. It will not bring new business to town. It will do nothing for downtown PG. In fact, it will remove a prime property from the part of downtown that is still alive and kicking. By doing so, it will create another block with no pedestrian attraction to come downtown. It is a bad decision all around. It should be located on Queensway or First Avenue. No property tax returns on this.

LIBRARY – there might be some money from senior government on this, but I assume very little. We have a library. Make some improvements to it that will give the poor building an entrance that is respectable. Put in the second floor of parking that it was designed to do so that the parking problem in that area is reduced. Include with that some commercial space addition such as a coffee shop and newspaper/magazine outlet. The library has no income other than fines. It will not enhance the activities in downtown other than if additional parking is provided and some compatible commercial space is added. No property tax returns on this.

FOURTH AVENUE – let it be already. No money for this unless tied in with that utilidor connected to the proposed central heating plant. Enough of “beautification” projects. The retail there seems to work. Stop ruining it by allowing offices on the main floor. Office are not what people going downtown want. Follow the OCP guidelines (which is VERY difficult for council to do for some reasons I cannot explain for the life of me) and allow them on storeys above street level where they belong. No property tax returns on this. However, some or all of it may be returned through a local improvement tax on the adjacent property owners.

PAC – there should be considerable money for the capital expenditure of this from the province and typically some from the Feds. In addition, be it ever so humble, there will be money from donations. The rest is up to the City. The price tag as suggested by the public seems to be going higher by the day. Whatever it is, the City is not likely to be putting in more than about $10 million counting property. Say even $15 million. Based on similar facilities, it will likely be spending another $400 to $500 thousand per year to assist in the operation. Based on the studies made public, the rest of the $2million or so annual operating costs would come from facility users – ticket purchases and rental. The annual capital and operating costs of that facility appear to be about half of the annualized capital cost of the RCMP building. The benefits are that there would be new money spent in the community as a result of the building and its services being here. That is not the case with the other projects above. No property tax return on this.

BOUNDARY ROAD - This development looks like it will get major funding from the two senior governments. Thus $60 million might cost the City $20 million. I am not sure who will develop the local access roads. Let us assume, however, that this is an investment that will pay for itself over time though development cost charges as businesses populate this area. There will be property taxes generated as well as money coming into the community if these are now, rather than relocated business. The question with this one, as with Fourth Avenue and the PAC is will they do what they say they will do. So, it is an investment that will eventually pay off, but the eventual could be 5 years or 15 years.

One thing is for sure. The City is running out of money. The next project or two may not give much room for additional projects to move for another 10 or so years at which time some of the current annual debt payments for past projects will be reduced.

The report to Council tonight lays that out quite nicely. The taxpayers in the City should take a good look at those graphs.

Drove around town the other day diplomat and I was suprised that nothing seems to be getting done.
The roads are VERY bad everywhere,but particularly between the bypass and downtown!
Make you wonder how long they can ignore this problem?

What no more money, there goes the idea of the light rapid transit from the Hart to College Heights.

I have heard that the current RCMP building actually was designed to be added unto by adding more floors. It only makes sense to me that this is what should be done if the RCMP require more space.

Of course doing the sensible thing is not the political thing.

With all the money we spend on policing and other related resources, I often think it would be cheaper to just give every criminal a pay cheque.

Seriously though, if we totally overhauled our social systems and made them more effective, socially, we could save a lot of money and keep a lot of people out of trouble and make them more productive. Probably 70 % of people in jail need rehabilitation and life skills training rather than incarceration.

However, if we put as little as 5% of the population in jail (or less), it guarantees the government control of the other 95%, who will then adopt any line of thinking that the government tells them to.

(that last paragraph is for those of us that are wondering why the government isn't in a hurry to make changes to the existing system)

It really is an ugly building, made uglier by the outside finish. We are going to be faced with more costs in the future, since Studio 2880 will likely move into the old cop shop. Meaning, we will need to pay to fix up the inside and the outside. So what does all this mean, it means we will be spending more future tax money on these items.

Gus, you seem to have both oars in the water. At what point does the city get its funding refused. is there a Number out there? It seems to me, that the city has a certain amount of credit, and the councillors will not be happy until it is maximized.

"I wonder if there is any available land next door to the proposed RCMP building. Great location for a Tim Hortons."

Build it into the new building and it will pay for the construction.

Maybe we could rent office space to defence counsel on site too.

Actually, eagle one, I think some jerk tried to burn down the sign at the 16/97 jnuction, that is why part of it is missing. Obviously, the people who want this new police station are not accountable for the expense, or they would be looking to provide us with better value. The bit about purchasing a parking lot has my antennae up though, what is that all about?
metalman.

Or take away Sheremetta's paycheck and any other officer who has been suspended with pay and use that money towards a new building.

I wonder just how much money is dished out every year?

Give them a Tim Horton's franchise. All they do is inhale do-nuts through their worthless cakeholes.

https://realbikers.com/catalog/images/DonutPoliceSm.jpg

http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2006/05/31/donut.jpg

http://www.policelink.com/nfs/policelink/attachment_images/0033/6411/DonutShopCops.jpg

A cops biggest dilemma: jelly or glazed?

Ah yes, Opinion 250's two resident cop-haters are back at it again. Still out of work Truthie? Don't worry, us working folks will pay for your lazy,crazy days.