The wise men of Babel know when to cast their bread on the waters of Kempenfelt Bay. It was mentioned in the blog of September 17 this year that city council gave Impresario Brown the Molson Centre for free to promote himself. Well, the boy is back with the moola! He showed up with $5.8 million of taxpayers’ money for Babel Transit.
And any charity that thinks it is also entitled to the Molson Centre for free had better note that return on investment. The curling club, for example, can hardly expect the Molson Centre to waive fees of $15,000 just because the Ontario curling finals might bring a couple million in revenue to Babel hotels and restaurants during the Ides of February. The going rate is now $2.9 million payback for every $5000 from Babel Council. The wise men of Babel are tough bargainers.
Imagine Impresario Brown’s chagrin when a giant pumpkin beat him to the front page picture in the Babel Backward. He had to settle for page three. They let the mayor drive the bus for the picture. The three people in the picture are showing so much teeth that you would think the photographer was in fear of being bitten.
But before we get carried away by such good news maybe we should note that the $5.8 million was still our money. It was good money that we taxpayers sent to Ottawa to run this country. If we had been asked, would we have volunteered it for the purpose of a local Conservative looking good through this largesse?
And besides, who says that this $5.8 million is going to a good cause? Has anyone really thought seriously about Babel Transit? The drivers of those buses are the people who recently voted to go on strike against the private company that runs Babel Transit for the city. And, do not forget, the wise men of Babel have set aside another $17 million to build a nice warm garage to keep our large smelly diesel buses comfy on winter nights.
But what we cannot figure out is why, for the next 20 years, are we going to use big, smelly diesel buses? Hybrid and straight electric buses are becoming much more popular for use in smaller cities. And it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that one size of bus does not fit all routes. We will come back to this subject in time. The wise men of Babel need a wake-up call.
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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