Letter: Gambling with city money: ‘Risk and Reward’
By Letter to the Editor on October 12, 2022.
Dear editor, Bureaucrats and city administrators love innovation and “projects.” Projects justify their budgets. Projects enhance professional profiles. City council relies on bureaucratic expertise for project advice. But who is held to final account? Who is fired for bad advice? Will we ever know the true costs or returns of the Manyberries purchase? Speculation abounds. And now who will be accountable for Project Clear Horizon or carbon capture? To their credit, city administrators always warn, “There’s no reward without investment risk.” Businesses always take risks. They have tax write-offs. But the city’s legally defined “business” is “public service.” Calgary and Edmonton councils opted out of direct control of energy businesses when time and effort were diverted from their public service mandate. So, when I hear of proposed city projects like carbon capture or hydrogen energy, I am concerned. I become more alarmed when provincial and/or federal “partners” are included in these city proposals. Remember the solar collector partnership? The city shared construction costs but monitoring and abandonment costs were entirely at the city’s expense. Beware these gift givers! City money was wasted on this experimental “project.” As for hydrogen production or carbon capture, please remember our Energy Czar’s earlier trial balloons. Helium would take city revenues to new heights! That is until more drilling expenses produced no “economically viable” production. Millions wasted. Private companies can speculate on energy projects. They get tax write-offs. But our city energy “business” gambles with taxpayers’ capital. And a loss is a total loss. Worse yet, council supports these decisions in “closed” business meetings. Who can be held to account when debate and decisions are secret? Here is an ultimate truth delivered by a CAO with integrity and experience. “If there’s a buck to be made, private enterprise will do it.” When governments get involved, it may momentarily be good politics, but the track record often falls far short of expectation. Council beware! Les Pearson Medicine Hat 15-14
What do you expect when you elect punch drunk ex-Tiger enforcers to make hundred million dollar decisions, or a drunk making backroom deals in a pub or someone who checks the appropriate number of boxes? Days are long gone when the person most qualified for a position get’s it. Like the old saying goes, “Anyone smart enough to properly run a city, province or country isn’t dumb enough to get into politics.”