One Million Bucks To Fix Up The Cenotaph

By Ben Meisner

While no one could argue that the Cenotaph in front of city hall needed some sprucing up, the story dug up and appearing on Opinion250 written by Elaine Macdonald paints a picture that would make most contractors blush.

The total cost of the project will now top out at $1 million bucks.

Now before you say that seems okay by you, take a drive by the hall and see what you got for your money, which may change your mind.

Macdonald points out in her story that the city spent $847,000 dollars plus tax, on the project. The province as part of its Olympic legacy program agreed to pay half up to a maximum of $500,000 dollars. While it may come as a surprise, you are also a provincial taxpayer, so what pocket did it come from?

When the bids went out they came in at $ 967,777.00 last year, so the city lopped off the irrigation, tree planting and some shrubs. That revised bid came in at $847 thousand dollars.

So now they are back at it and while the City will have to admit down the road that a project that was supposed to cost $950,000 dollars now comes in at $ 1 million, the bigger question is, did we get our bang for our buck for the million dollars we are dropping on the re-build? 

Look around, there are some very special homes with some very special yards in the city sitting on more than 1 acre of land that cost far less than a million. But then the local home owners didn’t spend just under 80 thousand dollars drawing up a plan. 

Every $500,000 dollars means a 1% increase in your taxes no matter how you cut it, even if the city doesn’t plan to have the trees to grow that money in place until later this spring.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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