A few weeks ago I had a meeting with our outgoing CAO. I had asked if the Town had a running total to date of all the costs related to the Downtown Master Plan.
He looked a little confused for a second and said "no we have not thought to do that".
Can you give me some numbers, I requested. As of writing this post I have not received them yet.
So let's take a look, and I'll use some round numbers and guesstimates here. If any one has correct numbers please share in the comments section.
Forec Designs & consultation $350.000
Staff hours put into plan: https://www.wasagabeach.com/Pages/Advisory-Committees.aspx#dmpac
George Vadeboncoeur, CAO
Andrew McNeill, Director, Economic Development & Tourism
Johanna Griggs, Economic Development Officer
Kevin Lalonde, Director, Public Works
Doug Herron, Planning Manager
Gerry Reinders, Manager of Parks and Facilities
Barrie Vickers, CBO
Nathan Wukash, Planner, $56,000 + Andrew @ $150,000.
Legal costs, purchase, expropriation, law suites, appeals etc. Maybe $100,000, I suspect much more.
Other Consultants like N. Barry Lyon Consultants Limited, CBRE Tourism and Leisure Group, J.C. Williams Group, easily $250,000.
Newspaper adds and other promotions approx; $75,000.
Public consultation Meetings maybe about $140,000.
Interest on mortgages. based on 10 million for a 5 year term about, $4.978,110
I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things here but so far we are at around: $5999110.
That's a whole lot of eggs in one basket. For 1/6th of that we could have built a 3 season events center at Beach 1 3 years ago and been hosting Weddings, fall RV shows, Music events, Harvest festivals, Octoberfest's, spring ATV shows. In the winter we could have laid down some ice and had covered skating.
Had we gone that direction instead, I think hotel/resort companies would have take a longer harder look at us. Boutique Builders would have been very interested in doing smaller scale luxury condos.
As a avid fisherman I know there's a lot of different type of bait to "land the big one" and often they are the simplest ones.
I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things here but so far we are at around: $5999110.
That's a whole lot of eggs in one basket. For 1/6th of that we could have built a 3 season events center at Beach 1 3 years ago and been hosting Weddings, fall RV shows, Music events, Harvest festivals, Octoberfest's, spring ATV shows. In the winter we could have laid down some ice and had covered skating.
Had we gone that direction instead, I think hotel/resort companies would have take a longer harder look at us. Boutique Builders would have been very interested in doing smaller scale luxury condos.
As a avid fisherman I know there's a lot of different type of bait to "land the big one" and often they are the simplest ones.
Comments from Facebook; Brenda Sigouin Good post Robert although I suspect your low on the estimated costs regarding the dt master disaster. I'm also very concerned about the millions of dollars planned on being put into public facilities, ie Library, Arena, Municipal Building all on Main Street to the ongoing inconvenience of the permanent residents. The spending goes on regarding the High School Committee when we have already been told it would be at least seven years until we get one. Now we're into a Tourism Study when I thought Andrew McNeil was our Director of Tourism. As well, as we get closer to the election, a flurry of activities include the unethical Mayor's newsletter included in our Water Bill, a bogus meeting regarding the design of a condo building that could be three years before being built. One thing I have to give the Mayor. He would be great at selling swampland in Florida.
ReplyDeleteWith the release of the Beach front management board report, losses everywhere, the numbers are adding up even more.
ReplyDelete