A Pox All Around

Out with the old, in with the new! With nothing resembling responsibility between. One City council takes what are legally irreversible steps, signing off on a hugely costly contract to build a light-rail transit system for the city, and an election intervenes. During the election process with one mayoral candidate pledging that the light-rail project will come off as planned and the other insisting it should be cancelled as a too-costly project for the municipal taxpayers, those taxpayers decide that the candidate promising lower taxes will get their vote.

The result of which is that the candidate declaring no new taxes, (a highly successful and venerable ploy which always brings with it profound regret after the fact, when the voting public buys into it then realizes the futility of its expectations) experiences a reluctant epiphany when it hits home that the promise is invalid, simply cannot be honoured. But what's honour to a politician, in any event? A speedily as the man took office the light-rail project was cancelled.

Hurray! Needless to say the building consortium with whom the project deal was signed, was none too happy, and since there's always a clause in any such contract leading to penalties, it was known quite soon that there would be a lawsuit against the city. Years later, negotiations are still ongoing, but are coming close to a conclusion. The lawsuit was in the neighbourhood of $200-million, but councillors are hoping to get away with a $36.7-million settlement.

Of municipal tax funding extracted from homeowners and businesses already paying among the highest municipal taxes in the country. City council and the mayor of ill-choice (Larry O'Brien, fresh from his own legal escape) have long lamented that they were inadequately prepared to continue with a full slate of municipal programs due to the lack of adequate funding. Taxes were raised, to ensure that critical city programs would continue unabated. But there are still shortfalls.

And in this atmosphere, this time and this place, with a ruinously difficult transit-worker strike behind the city, along with local business failures, some owing to the effects of the strike, others a result of the global economic downturn, local taxpayers are on the hook for almost $40-million in a settlement to avoid the larger penalty of a lawsuit proceeding to its conclusion. That's added to the $54-million the city had already expended in preliminary costs for the project.

Oh yes, plus the $2-million in legal costs to date. And while the city is opting to pay out the settlement over several years' time, Siemens insists on a lump-sum. Oh yes, let's not overlook the fact that the consortium insists city councillors not speak publicly about the outcome. Worse, in a very real and very insulting sense, the companies would like to know they will not be out of the picture to compete for any future work. Argh!