Central Saanich Mayor Ryan Windsor versus the community he is supposed to represent. That pretty much sums up comments Windsor made at a meeting of Island municipalities in Nanaimo on April 13, according to an article in the Nanaimo Bulletin. From that article, in speaking to a resolution tabled at the meeting, Windsor expressed frustration that district taxpayers were allowed to have a say in how their property taxes are spent. Specifically, the resolution he supported would eliminate the rights of residents to vote on major capital projects.
The example he referenced in his speech was his ill-conceived municipal complex project that he is now actively marketing. A project, from its inception, based on secret meetings, a secret report he still refuses to release to the public, a shocking expropriation of land that was to have been used for seniors housing, and a project that was secretly approved by council with no knowledge or input from the community.
The scale of taxpayers’ money at risk is massive. The capital cost of the project at the moment is estimated to be $55M. Over and above that, the district’s draft budget includes huge increases in the size of the district’s finance and administration bureaucracy needed to support the project. The budget also includes funding for a new full-time facilities manager position that the project needs. Conceivably, the project could approach $70M or $80M when inflation, tariffs, salaries and, oh yes, a multi-million-dollar lawsuit incurred by the project, are included.
Windsor’s disdain towards Central Saanich taxpayers is hard to understand. When faced with a major capital project that will affect everyone in the district for generations, most people would agree that elector assent would be the right thing to do. It appears the mayor thinks otherwise, and believes momentous decisions such as these should be left in the hands of just seven people on council, with no interference from those who elected them.
David Lawson
Central Saanich
