The dog days of summer continue into the fall. The most contentious issue on city council recently was a dog park. Somebody forgot to scoop on that one. Frankly, there is nothing positive to report. So why say anything?
Mind you, we went to the grand opening of the new community theatre on Saturday. We Babelites call it the ‘Taj Mady.’ It cost every household in Babel more than $140 each. And a lot of arguments. We are wondering how to get our money back. It will hold about 150 patrons of the arts if you fold open every seat. It is on three floors and we were in one opulent room in the basement and the wife asked, “What is this?” The answer was “the ladies’ washroom.” We beat a hasty retreat. The signage could be improved and certainly made more obvious. We did note, it has those nifty Dyson blade hand driers. Cool.
From there we went to a craft beer bar on Dunlop for lunch. The waitress looked at us in distain when we requested a Labatt’s Blue.
We really should not complain about the cost of the community theatre. Not when you compare it to the cost of the historic Allandale Station. The city has spent more than seven million on that without having a clue as to what use it will be put. We keep suggesting that it might be useful as a train station but that is too simple. They are building another train station on the road behind the old station and it has a tunnel under the tracks for some reason we cannot fathom. It was supposed to be operational late last year and the current projection has been changed from sometime this fall to between Christmas and New Years. That is not only too specific for Babel but extremely unlikely.
We are annoyed with city planners over the ridiculous plans for the Lakefront. They are going to cause more chaos on the Lakeshore for the next two years moving the road over to accommodate more park and more parking. Would anyone like to buy a nice condo that has already been surrounded with the dust of construction for the past four years?
If we really wanted to say anything negative about City Council this summer it would have been over the vote to give Impresario MP Brown the Molson Centre free for an event wherein he could promote himself. City Council’s excuse was that the funds raised go to Royal Victoria Hospital. The crass Mr. Brown just gets the publicity he wants. And on that basis, the councillor for Ward 8 should have declared a conflict of interest as she was also promoted as a skater at the event. That would have meant the motion to give Mr. Brown the centre for free would have been defeated on the split vote.
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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