To the Editor,
Re: Referendum on loan for water treatment plant planned for fall, June 16.
It is being said that the Vancouver Island Health Authority and the province are insisting we embark on this $65-million water treatment plant.
Has anyone actually checked into who at VIHA is insisting the taxpayers of Nanaimo cough up with multi-millions of dollars, to not only build this questionable facility but to pay for its continued operation?
Is this perhaps a case of some senior bureaucrats at VIHA flexing their muscle with the senior bureaucrats at city hall and between the two of them have decided to impose this extreme burden on Nanaimo taxpayers?
It is time that we saw ‘in writing’ the actual stand VIHA has taken in this matter to see if they are actually saying what we are being told, and if, in fact, they are within their authority.
The taxpayers of Nanaimo are not a bottomless pit that bureaucrats can continue to extract taxes from to fund projects which arguably are totally unnecessary.
Who at city hall will stand up for the taxpayers and demand that if VIHA and the province are going to demand we build this new water treatment plant, then they need to supply the money to do it.
Spending $65 million for a questionable water treatment plant, $16 million for a new staff office, $1 million a year to run the conference centre – will it end before this city is looking like Greece?
Greece is reported as having record unemployment at 16.5 per cent, which is not much worse than Nanaimo at the present time. Yet city hall keeps spending like we were in the midst of a grand boom cycle.
Jim Taylor
Nanaimo