"Today, there is only one way to describe the amount of debt in the world – absolutely frightening. Future generations will look back in amazement at the herds of politicians, bankers, corporate leaders and establishment economists who have refused to address or even acknowledge the extent of the problem, and who, in fact, have contributed greatly to it. Like Nero, they have their fiddles. And, yes, while Rome burns, they play, and play, and play"

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/7308/1/invasion%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bmoneylenders%2B%96%2Bpart%2B3%2B%96%2B%93the%2Bblack%2Bhole%2Bof%2Bdebt%94

Well on The Dr's yesterday they said that colder temperatures help you lose weight. Something about the brown fat takes over the yellow fat.... So if nothing else it can help them stay in shape????

;)

Just cooling? Or heating as well?

BTW, most office type buildings, even in PG, require a considerable amount of cooling to overcome the internally generated heat as well as external heat gain. Electrical equipment and human bodies give off heat that is at a higher temperature than the preferred ambient room temperature. About the only time that cooling amy not be called for in some zones of a building in PG is during the 3 or 4 winter months.

Just enforcing the basic speed limit in town (50km/h unless posted otherwise) would net the City/RCMP way more than a million bucks a year in traffic fines revenue.

It's legitimate, legal and necessary and it would reduce accidents!

"Just cooling? Or heating as well?"

Yes. The same system can do both: Extract heat from cold water (for heating) or dump heat into cold water (for cooling).

It's called a heat pump. Google it.

I think the whole concept of the building and its costs are nuts. The city council should be pepper sprayed and tazered. (haha). If I personally spent money this way, I would have claimed bankruptcy three times over.

Diplomat. Sorry, the question was really meant for the author of the article. I am quite familiar with geothermal and very familiar with heat pumps. My parents, back east, have had one for some 30 years for their house to provide them with cooling in the summer and heating in the winter with gas supplying the heat when it gets really cold.

It would make sense in PG if there was more need for cooling for houses, but the nights here are typically cool enough to cool off the house.

Imorge, I agree. The costs and proposals being considered are nuts. Unfortunately, Pepper sprayed and tazered would not be enough. These folks need to take personal financial responsibility for the decisions they make. They are truly out of touch and out of their minds. They have no idea of the consequences of their decisons. Or they would make different decisions.

I suspect that this all goes back to matching funds from the Provincial Goverment and the Federal Government. Seems that is how this two bit City operates.

Lets say we could build a Police Station for $25 Million dollars that would fill our needs. Why wouldnt we build one for $40 Million dollars and get $15 Million more from the Feds and Prov. In other words get as much funding as possible for other levels of Government and spend it willy nilly.

You have this presently going on, on River Road, and you will have the same thing going on when they build the cut off from Highway 16 to 97 and Boundry Road. We need this cut off like we need another hole in the head.

The only people who will benefit from it are those who bought up the property behind the Airport and they will benefit because they will build a new industrial park in that area. Other than that the taxpayers will once again get the shaft.

All these projects are a total waste. The problem is, most people in this City either dont know what is going on, refuse to understand what is going on, or dont care what is going on.

We always have the Danny Do Gooders saying what a wonderful thing these projects are, and they come up with hairy fairy excuses to justify them.

You need only to look at the **Stupid** runway expansion at the Airport, along with the empty Terminal Building, and Customs area, and the expanded but empty parking spaces to see a gross waste of approx $50 Million.

Of course the Danny Do Gooders will say ***If it wasnt for the recession these facilities would be bearing fruit***

I say, dont bitch about not having any money for local projects such a roads,and parks, reduced taxes, water, sewer, garbage, etc when you allow these people to waste your hard earned money on STUPID projects.

Gus, my answer wasn't meant to be offensive, just informative.

I have to agree with those who are peeved off with some of the decisions that are being made by those whose say is final at City Hall.

Often they seem to be influenced by so-called experts who get a commission which gets bigger the more expensive the project becomes.

Well, recessions can have devastating effects, like a million Canadians unemployed...revenues down by tens of billions and considerable belt tightening for a long period of time.

Everybody is crying for more federal infrastructure stimulus money (all borrowed money of course) and perhaps there will be quite a few so-called *total waste* projects which won't produce results immediately but will provide work for now and economic opportunities for tomorrow.

Wouldn't it be better to have make-work projects and employ as many people as possible instead of having them run out of EI and ending up on welfare?

Diplomat. I dont have a problem with make work projects that provide employment, and create jobs, but at the end of the day we should have something to show for the expenditure.

A huge improvement to River Road that was not really necessary created a few short term jobs, but paid big bucks to contractors. The same applies to the Airport Runway Expansion. It is now finished $36 Million dollars spent, and all we have is an unused piece of cement.

We could have created some long term jobs by spending the same money. Ie; Improve Cottonwood Park, Pave City Roads, reduce taxes, so that the locals have more money to spend.

We could have spent millions on reforestation, which would create jobs for years to come. There are many things we could do.

To spend over $40 Million dollars for the Highway 16 to 97 Boundry Road cut off, will create a few short term jobs, however once again the bulk of the money will go to the contractors, and we will end up with an unused ;piece of Highway for years to come.

It appears this City council is still bent on the tax base increasing even though it has steadily declined for a number of years. With prices going up on about everything the only way to pay for this Castle would be to pull the bottoms out of our pockets. The whole idea is absurd! Cops in Castles? I could write a book.

diplomat, I did not take it as being offensive.

This is not the best medium for communication sometimes since the written word can be taken in different fashion.

For those who may be interested, there is a parallel debate going on in Saint John, NB right now. A $43 million new police headquarters (don't know if this is accurate since an earlier article states the cost was $25 million) and virtually all the posters are against it.

The City appears to be proposing a rent-to-own building. Currently they are paying "rent" of $660,000/year. One poster figures that $43 million would be an increase of about 3 to 4 times that amount.

If that $660 thousand is really a current rent, then Saint John is further ahead than we are since we have no rent and appear to have no way of measuring what the market place economic rent of the current and the future space is.

At $20/sf our rent for the two floors of the existing building would be about the same as the Saint John building.

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/779077&p=2

This article from March 2009 says it is a $25 million building, "fully outfitted".

The City population in 2006 was 74,621 and the census metro area was 122,389/ I believe that some or all of the smaller surrounding communities are services by the RCMP.
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BTW, it is nice to see that the Saint John has a police commission and that the agendas and public parts of the meetings have minutes posted on their web site.

Nice to see democracy and public information distribution in action, even though this year's minutes appear to be sparse.

http://www.cityofsaintjohn.com/services_agendas-list.cfm?DepartmentID=D3B2CC86-E7B7-CC19-A3C7072899781950

Could this be the next building to be built in PG? PG Transit operations centre?

http://saintjohntransit.com/index.php?id=35