Most communities appreciate the extras that come about when politicians are able to wheel and deal and come up with financial aid for a project. State-side they call it pork barreling.
Here it’s akin to bringing home the bacon – by going after grants, tweaking development charge funds to include projects uncontemplated at the time a bylaw was passed, partnering with groups in a roundabout way to get some Trillium money and yes, accessing discretionary funds.
For the recipients it is like manna from heaven.
As the national and provincial debts rocket to unheard of heights, it would seem the lessons of the early 90s are long forgotten. We remember. And we also remember the observations of the day that municipalities represented Ontario’s greatest untapped capital resource. In other words, municipalities owed very little and could borrow easily.
After that time of restraint, provincial grants were as scarce as hen’s teeth.
Municipalities have since had access to grants from the provincial and federal governments. Mammoth arenas, pools and recreation facilities sprung up province wide in the ensuing years. It was an orgy of pork-barreling not seen in decades.
Currently the feds owe in excess of $612 billion dollars and Ontario owes half of that amount, at $308 billion. Ascertaining township figures isn’t as easy, but maybe that’s a point of transparency whose time has come. We fear the numbers would be disturbing.
Closer to home the township of Guelph-Eramosa is in the final throes of getting its very own skatepark, joining numerous other communities who had the same fever.
The project will cost $350,000 with $60,028 coming from reserves, $73,530 from development charges, $150,000 from a potential Trillium grant, and $66,442 potentially coming from community fundraising.
In the event the project comes up short, Mayor Chris White has indicated the township will tap the Rockwood Hydro Fund – again.
While we are not so crass to suggest a skatepark isn’t an urgent priority, a couple of financial things really bother us.
First off, the township has habitually borrowed in recent years to complete road works traditionally paid for out of the tax base. The outstanding amount of township debt related to roads and bridge work was requested but not available by press deadline.
Second, the Rockwood Hydro fund is starting to sound like a political slush fund on its way to being frittered away.
Pork has a price, and an update to taxpayers on township debt is overdue.
