MARSDEN: Green Line debacle symptomatic of a chaotic council

David Marsden is a Calgary writer and editor.The Green Line debacle is just the latest reveal of the impotence of Calgary City Council.They have been polishing their skills for years. After taking office — with many of the council members’ election campaigns partially funded by the city’s employees themselves — they raised taxes on the ordinary Calgarian.And yet council declares a housing crisis. How can you afford a house when your taxes are so high?For renters, too, the cost of living is simply passed on to those seeking to enjoy life. It’s said the average rent for housing is $2,000 a month in the city, including all variety of units.Maybe if taxes weren’t so high because of servitude to civic unions, people could afford a home. After being heavily funded by the unions, council happily approved a 9.5 per cent wage increase to public employees, over the next three years. In what universe does that happen?The average wage Calgarians receive is $28 an hour. You will be hard pressed to find a job opportunity on the city’s website that offers less than $40 an hour.Maybe people wouldn’t choose to live in Okotoks or Airdrie, where costs are more reasonable, if the city had contained its expenses.Our council is an embarrassment. The failure of the Green Line is a travesty. People have moved to the deep southeast in expectation that proper transit service would be provided. Apparently, council thinks movement isn’t necessary.Council thinks it’s acceptable to receive funds from senior levels of government and deliver half the coverage.Imagine going into a restaurant. You order a burger and fries and you are served a hotdog and pie. That’s not what you ordered.And we have the arena travesty. We are contributing $831 million toward the twice-forwarded project. In Ottawa, the team’s owners are footing the bill.“If you look at the history in Canada, public venues have not been funded by the taxpayer,” says Senators president Cyril Leeder. “That’s the history, that’s what we’ve done in this country and that’s our expectation as well.”Well, perhaps he’s never been to Calgary, where taxpayer money flows more freely than tap water.The Green Line will proceed. More than a billion dollars of our money has been spent. It will cost another billion dollars to truly cancel the project.Governments blather about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Green Line would assist in that effort.There is money to fund the project. The city and the provincial government are proposing to desecrate Calgary Olympic Plaza. You know the place. It’s where the medals were awarded in 1988. It’s downtown and where 30,000 supporters pledged a bit of money to make the Games succeed by purchasing bricks. Now the city wants to throw out all the bricks, but keep the skating rink.The thumb suckers at city hall call it a “re-imaging” of the plaza. It must be nice to be paid $50 an hour and come up with such colourful words.Can you imagine, again, a couple saying they are going to reimagine the basement? They would call it a renovation. A couple wouldn’t say they are going to reimagine the backyard. They would say they are going to fix the deck.It is the savaging of Olympic Plaza. The park represents Calgary at its height; before spendthrifts came into office and took advantage of Calgarians, while feathering their own nest.Hey, Jyoti Gondek, leave those bricks alone.The $70 million in money dedicated to ravaging Calgary Olympic Plaza should be put toward the Green Line.And senior levels of government should step up and accomplish what successive city politicians have been unable to put on the rails.David Marsden is a Calgary writer and editor.

MARSDEN: Green Line debacle symptomatic of a chaotic council

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