Fund Won't Solve Cameron Street Woes: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

        
Why does City Hall continue to insist that the Canada-British Columbia Municipal Infrastructure fund could be the "be all- end all" for the money woes of the Cameron St. Bridge?  

Get with the program folks. Have you read the criteria for the grants? The fund is made up of $51 million Federal money, $51  million Provincial money and $51 million local money, that translate into $153 million in the pot. 

80% of that total  is to be shared by all cities in the province with fewer than 250,000 people.

60% of that money will go to "Green projects" such as; drinking water, storm water and sewage treatment and public transit.

The Mayor has obviously been eating too much of that Chinese food on his junkets. A new bridge across the Nechako simply doesn’t qualify nor should it.

But what if we caught Stephen Harper drinking beer with the Taliban and were able to squeeze the money out of him?  Well we would have to line up with the balance of the communities in BC under 250,000 for the 80% that is divided into two pots, 60% for green projects, you know sewer water etc, for a total of $49 million and $32 ½ million for local roads culture, tourism and recreation benefits.

Now the full meal deal for the bridge is about $19 million for phase 1, so get that one out of your head.  Option 2 (for god’s sake don’t mention opition3) is for about $9 million.

So could we conceivably get $6 million for the Cameron St. bridge option 2?  That’s the plan for a two lane metal bridge on the old piers.  That would leave us with a bill for $3 million. Using what bridge builders now say is a more accurate price than the City’s old estimates, the full meal deal would cost us about $25 to $30 million when the dust settles . So we would only need $20 million of the infrastructure fund, and all the other communities won’t mind if we take two thirds of the pot.

Only hitch, there is a "cap" on the funding.  That "cap" is a million per level of government, so, one million from the federal share, one million from the provincial share....and we are left with a tab that at the very least, would be $7 million, and at the worst, $22 -27 million. 

No  one wants to talk about it, but "option 3" (oooh, someone will get mad) is a single metal deck on the existing piers,  at a cost of about $3 million... gee.. one million from the feds, one million from the province...  we pay our share...everyone is "even- steven"...yet this is the only one we are not supposed to talk about!

You folks who have been trying to pass this one off on the taxpayers, get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids and don’t report to work you could spread it around, your sick.

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

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