Steve Heath wrote:
Rick Di Lorenzo wrote:
FYI the agreement in regards to the Management Committee has been amended to include a provision so the six Town of
Milton appointees (of the 11 total members) to the Committee be required to be residents or taxpayers of Milton.
While we give you guys a lot of guff, I will also give you (council) kudos for so promptly getting the amendment done.
That said, it came up in the other thread (about parks) that the town is allocating a lot more resources than understood, so Rick/Zeesh, can I bother you for up to date answers on the following?
1) Was $250,000 of town general revenue spent hiring consultants related to the velodrome? If not, what was the correct amount and/or source of funds?
2) Is the town responsible for paying the $2.5 million if Laurier does not pay? If so, what would be the source of the funds? If it's the development reserve, would that increase the amount of development funds diverted to this single recreation project to $6 million, based on the previously announced $3.5 million figure?
Thank you.
Steve.
I was strongly against the velodrome from the beginning. My main concern was that past history dictates that the Pan AM Games will be a major flop and any involvement we had in those games would lead to the town incurring unnessessary debt.
Now as this monster grows I find myself worried about the town being on the hook for operating costs for years to come. Operating costs for a facility that serves only a small fraction of the community. I've said it many times and I'll say it again we have so many needs (solutions to our transit whoas, infrastructure) why are we focusing on the wants of the few?
Early on there were ramblings and assurances from our council that a legacy fund would cover operating costs. We the people were promised that if research suggested the velodrome would end up costing the town money that some councillors would walk away from this disasterous project.
See Mike Cluett's post from the "Milton in the race for Pan Am velodrome" thread posted Oct 18, 2011.
Quote:
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I was at a CSAC meeting and didnt see CHCH news and for some reason the site is down.
The admin and planning committee last night reviewed the letter and recommendation from staff. There were a lot of caveats with this and a majority of the committee and non committee members said that if this impacts the Milton taxpayer, then the answer is no.
We directed staff to look at it with private sector funding/cooperation with the university at the Education Village and other corporate citizens. If a way can be found that wont cost Milton taxpayers of course we'd like to do it. Theres a lot of if's...and if the if's cant be answered, then my recommendation would be to say NO and I know my council collegues would say the same thing. There are too many projects in town right now *cough* hospital expansion that we need to make sure we focus on.
This is definately, as the mayor would say, a LIKE to have, not a NEED to have. Im waiting for the report from staff to come back before making a final decision.
This velodrome can be repurposed to something else after its all said and done and its also a project that qualifies for "legacy funding" which will help defer operation costs for a number of years.
Nothing was set in stone and staff is reviewing it. If it can happen we can move forward, given our consideration for "tax neutral" but if it cant...then its a NO.
_________________
Mike Cluett
Ward 6 Town Councillor
Clearly Mike's vote would have to be a NO at this point.