Panel data provided by Madison's Canadian Lumber Reporter.

We've Travelled This Road Before

By Ben Meisner

Here we go,another "counter petition" on a money by-law...

Last week the City set October 11th as the deadline to use a counter petition to prevent the City from borrowing $9.4 million dollars to build an energy system for down town. 

By law number  7746 will be contingent on the City receiving $14 million from the Federal Government in support of the project. The Federal Government grant would include money and a low interest loan. 

Residents no doubt will be a bit jaundiced about the idea of a counter petition. 

You may all recall the Terasen Gas deal, there was a successful counter petition filed after the city said it couldn’t happen and they then turned around a few months later and undertook a $600,000 dollar campaign to sell us on the idea, of course with our money. 

What is so remarkable about that was the fact that not one penny was given to the people for the campaign opposing the deal.
Had someone decided to take the city to court arguing that there wasn’t fair play I wonder what would have happened? The rag tag group that was the nay sayers just bit the bullet. 

In the latest instance, the city is about to borrow another $9.4 million and of course that will come in addition to the Federal Government loans to produce heat with wood waste for the down town and some other government buildings . 

We had, with my best recollection, about $70 million dollars left of borrowing on our credit card out of the $ 220 million that is the max on our credit card. So this latest move leaves us with about $ 60 odd million to carry us through the next number of years. If the city hits a dry spell or heaven forbid runs into problem like they did in New Orleans, I wonder aloud just where the money that is required will come from ..Perhaps selling the city crest?

As a foot note;

 I couldn’t help but wonder the other night how anyone could comment about the beetle desk and the type of wood that city resident Bill Rushton used to make that desk. The guy has been  doing this kind of quality work  for over 50 years, the desk in question is laminate beetle on birch. By the way, do you use your desk for a work bench or do you use it to write? The "experts" very often are experts only in their own mind. Some times you have to wonder if a reader will get the point even if you hit them over the head with a 2x4, whether its beetle kill or not. 

I'm Meisner, and that is one man's opinion.


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