To the editor:
Thunder Bay city councillors have made an expensive mistake and they don’t seem to care. It’s part of a pattern of investing in projects that never pan out. This time it’s money for the design of the proposed new police ‘campus’.
Councillors should not have given a $2.4 million carte blanche to a totally dysfunctional police department now under investigation by the province.
Indeed, we should all wait until after the Ontario Civilian Police Commission has concluded its investigation. When it’s over, we may well have a new police chief and deputy and a new Police Services Board with a completely different take on what’s needed.
It’s clear now why the police board and senior managers didn’t properly consult the community about this boondoggle: the chief and board members are in wallowing in chaos, too distracted by internal conflicts tearing the place apart.
The dysfunction also explains why no one in authority bothered to do any due diligence, to study alternatives to a single massive building too large for the existing property on Balmoral Street.
Instead of doing the heavy lifting in-house or hiring a true expert in policing to go through a proper planning process, the department hired a local architect to prepare a floor plan drawn up from a gold-plated wish list.
No messy public meetings. No time-consuming stakeholder conversations. Just write a cheque for money that’s not theirs.
The police are now betting the public is ready to give them whatever they want no matter how ill-considered and ridiculously expensive for a city whose economy is stagnant.
City council should be protecting the public purse against this nonsense. Unfortunately for taxpayers, during the budget debate on the $2.4 million….our politicians were mute. The lack of interest and curiosity was stunning.
No one asked why the department hired a Thunder Bay architect instead of an expert in planning police facilities. No questions about how a large, remote building fit with the concept of neighbourhood policing. No inquiries about cost-sharing with the OPP or the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service. Nothing about whether there are ways to get the federal and provincial government to help with the costs.
A council that really cared about taxpayers would freeze the $2.4 million until this soap opera is over. But don’t count on common sense from a core group that spent millions on a non-event centre and didn’t blink about the waste.
Instead, you’re better off to simply remember who is looking out for the taxpayers’ interest and who isn’t. An election is coming.
