Public consulted for no apparent reason

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/01/2024 (980 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The short-lived and somewhat perfunctory push by Brandon’s administration to explore the possible construction of an outdoor aquatic facility came to an abrupt and public end this week, the victim of more pressing budgetary concerns.

As we reported this week, draft budget documents include a 10-year capital plan that divides projects into three different slots — essential projects, primary amenities and secondary amenities.

Under the proposed budget, spending on primary amenity capital projects will be deferred for a year — presumably to ensure that essential projects receive required funding to move forward — while any projects deemed as secondary amenities will be completely removed from the city’s consideration under the current financial situation facing city council.

That means the aquatic centre, which was deemed a secondary amenity, is no longer under consideration, and appears nowhere on the city’s 10-year capital budget plan.

This decision will no doubt disappoint a considerable number of Brandon residents who had been given some hope that the city was ready to move forward with planning such a facility.

But rather than focus on disappointment, it’s worth questioning the city’s veracity in conducting such a dog and pony show in the first place when the administration moved ahead with consulting the public about developing one.

In August 2022, shortly before the municipal election in October, the city under then-mayor Rick Chrest awarded a contract to MNP for $108,500 to study the feasibility of constructing an outdoor aquatics complex — one of the goals outlined in the city’s Recreation and Community Facilities Master Plan.

This money was spent even as the former city council debated the merits of taking on tens of millions of dollars in new debt to pay for the southwest lift station project, among other multimillion-dollar projects that were deemed essential to the city’s growth.

You have to wonder if they believed there was money in a future budget for such a project, considering the amount of debt they were considering to take on.

Following public debate and growing public concern over the potential debt load the city was considering, the City of Brandon then went to the public one month after the municipal election to seek ideas from residents in the form of an online survey.

“To make this outdoor aquatic centre a possibility, the city needs the public’s participation,” the city stated in press release in November 2022.

There was even a public open house in March of last year to “share feedback received on the proposed design and location.”

But to our knowledge, a final report that was supposed to be delivered to the city in April of last year has never been publicly released. And it’s not hard to imagine why — it was never going to happen, given the state of our debt load, and the growing realization by city councillors that they were facing a financial mess that would prevent the city from taking on many new projects.

We wondered aloud on this page back in September 2022 whether this study would end up on a shelf in a dark basement office somewhere, “unused and unloved.”

Audits, reviews, studies — they use up time and make elected officials look like they’re taking action, without taking action. They’re especially useful when a government is under public pressure to “do something” rather than just ignore a problem.

That’s what we said at the time. And those words were as prophetic as they were troubled. In moving forward with this study, the city raised the hopes of local residents that such a project would be feasible.

If city administration and the mayor and council already knew that Brandon couldn’t afford an aquatic centre for the time being, why go through the motions and create great expectations? And if they didn’t realize how dire the city’s financial situation was becoming, that casts doubt on our leadership’s ability to recognize the financial hurdles ahead.

Of course, city councillors can still decide to bring the project back from the brink during budget deliberations over the coming weeks — city administration doesn’t make those final decisions after all. We’re not suggesting that they do or don’t … just acknowledging the possibility.

We previously praised the city for reaching out to the public for their thoughts on this proposal, and we continue to hope that our city leaders won’t learn the wrong lesson from this situation — more and better public participation and information is a good thing, not a problem to be worked around.

But that public outreach needs to be straightforward and honest about the likelihood of projects under consideration, or the message will only backfire with those members of the public who are still interested in listening.