Quote:
Originally Posted by quasi
That's all fair, the anoying part is the rest of us can't just go to our employer when our yard has to be dug up because a pipe burst and say shits rough out there going to need a 7% raise this year so just go ahead and do that if you wouldn't mind. There has to be some accountability in lack of fore site, I understand that sometimes it's impossible to plan for the unforeseen but when the tax payers really have no say in how the city manages its money (sometimes really poorly) and any overages are then tossed back on the tax payer to absorb with limited accountability it's kind of frustrating. Sure we can vote them out but cycle just repeats.
Not sure if there is a better way but the entire system can be frustrating at times.
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I don't think it's really a lack of foresight - it's generally well known what infrastructure needs to be built/upgraded well in advance but city council has pretty clear direction that voters do not want to pay for things they cannot see or think they cannot use so city council does pretty much exactly what voters want which is to ignore the problem and let the next generation deal with it.
Back to my sewer example - it's been known for a LONG time that upgrades needed to happen and for a long time they were actually making the upgrades until money got tight and people got upset about tax dollars going to things they couldn't see so they stopped upgrading as aggressively. Blame the voters from 10, 20, 30 years ago for resisting necessary upgrades.
Burnaby city council wanted to build a new city hall recently b/c the current one is near end of life but they bungled the roll out of their plan and voters got pissed. Now they'll just nurse the current buildings along for another 10-20 years. I'm not sure if city hall really needed replacement right now but I'm also sure that Burnaby did a horrible job explaining the need for it and that's something that they have to get right.