Voters want to know where the candidates stand on the issues and so does Sudbury.com.
To that end, we’ve created a new election feature: Where Do They Stand? We picked nine issues that mattered to us, and reached out to the mayoral candidates and invited them to give us their answers.
Each candidate has 250 words or less to stake out their position on each of these issues: the Kingsway Entertainment District (KED); expanded casino gambling; large project spending; downtown Sudbury and the urban-rural divide; taxation (everyone’s favourite); roads (always top of mind in Sudbury); the health of our lakes; the state of firefighting in the city, and; transparency, openness and leadership.
For the next nine week days we’ll be rolling a new story every weekday, an election issue per day leading up to Election Day.
Today, the topic is one related to an issue that is top-of-mind this election: the more than $200 million city council wants to spend on large construction projects. Namely, the Kingsway Entertainment District and the Junction arts and culture hub, as well as the money promised to the Place des Arts project downtown.
Read on and find out exactly what the candidates think. Now, every candidate was invited to participate, but not all of them chose to do so. Here are the answers from those who did.
Rodney Newton, Troy Crowder, and David Popescu did not supply answers.
You can click on each candidate’s name to visit their page on the Sudbury.com election website.
This was the question we asked:
City council has approved spending $100 million on an event centre, put $5 million toward the $30-million Place des Arts, and plans to spend another $100 million on The Junction arts and culture hub. Taxpayers will be paying for these items for decades to come. Is this a good use of our money? Explain your position.
Brian Bigger (incumbent)
For our city to thrive, grow and not only retain but attract new residents, we need to be modern, accessible and have good reasons to attract residents. Each of these projects have been costed, scrutinized and their value is proven. These projects are an investment in the future – I’m excited to be part of a council that is finally seeing progress in our downtown and across the whole city.
Cody Cacciotti
As someone who has spent the last several years working in economic development in arts and culture, I have an intimate knowledge of the benefits of investing in community-based projects. If I am fortunate enough to be your mayor, I will work to ensure that every project, big or small, will focus on benefit for the community and economic sustainability. Smart and sustainable investments are required in order to continue to build our community and our economy.
Bill Crumplin
I highly value the arts and culture. These are elements of a city that speak to people of all ages and backgrounds. We happen to be a community that is home to many cultures and they enrich our city and lives. I am looking forward to the completion of the Place des Arts as it epitomizes the multi-cultural aspects of our community and will host arts from all cultures.
I hope that, as mayor, I will lead discussions to redevelop the arena into a multi-use event, library and performing arts centre. I am sure that we could do so for far less money than will be our share of the KED and the Junction combined.
However, I do feel that we need a venue to host large provincial, national and international conventions, meetings and trade shows. There are dozens if not more of these events that we miss out on because we do not have a venue large enough. We are easily accessible and would provide a new option to Toronto, Ottawa, London, etc. Hosting these events would benefit our existing hotels, restaurants and other venues. Such events could demonstrate to many attendees that we are a great place to visit, invest and perhaps even live!
Every thriving city invests in arts and culture, it would be my expectation that we do so in measured ways that does not cause our core services to continue to be ignored.
Jeff Huska
As I’ve stated earlier, I can’t understand why the arena costs have escalated to $100 million from the original $60 million. The money being spent on the Junction is totally dependent on the LPAT appeals being denied, and the KED moving forward.
I am concerned with costs if the Junction was to move forward. We are pushing the upper limit of $300 million and we haven’t even factored in the $1.3-billion water/wastewater program over the next decade. I really do believe we need to have a framework in place to look at wants and needs of the city. There are some major infrastructure issues that need city hall’s attention. I think the city needs to dial back the projected costs of some of these projects.
I’m a big supporter of P3 Projects (Public, Private Partnerships) that can defer costs to the developer and a buyback system in place by the city, which eventually sees the city taking control and ownership. A P3 typically involves private entity financing, constructing, or managing a project in return for a promised stream of payments directly from the municipality over the projected life or some other specified period of time much like a mortgage.
Ron Leclair
While I agree that cultural arts deserve attention, such as Places des Arts and the Junction that will be located downtown, I would suggest that these projects be postponed until we can rectify the situation that we are currently facing downtown. I believe there are more prominent issues to resolve and spend money on such as road repairs, water and sewer maintenance, safe housing for our low-income seniors, bringing in new investors and new businesses. To have a better city, we need to build a better city.
Dan Melanson
During the last election I campaigned on ending the city’s pay-as-you-go policy and to start debt-financing for infrastructure renewal. At that time I said that debt-financing could and should only be used to tackle the infrastructure deficit.
I warned that council would have to be vigilant, use it only for infrastructure, and not use debt-financing to go on a spending spree of legacy projects. Unfortunately, those things I was worried about have come to pass in that this council has plans to spend upwards of $300 million on various legacy projects.
Debt-financing for the arena alone equates to $5.2 million every year for the next 30 years, which, if the other $200 million legacy projects proceed, means we will be paying over $15 million in debt-financing a year. According to the 2018 budget, reserves will fund $13.9 million in capital projects which reduces our reserves and reserve funds and the city’s budget notes that, “Increased revenues will be required to replace and strengthen reserve balances over the long-term” yet there is no indication on how the city plans to do this unless they mean to increase taxes for the long term which many taxpayers cannot afford.
Patricia Mills
The estimates provided above are just that — estimates. We have no clear indication of the real costs associated with these projects beyond some high-level concept drawings. The $100 million for the Events Centre does not include other costs associated with the development of the site such as hydro, roads, water, sewer, etc.
The Place des Arts does not include the value of the land the city leased to the project and published reports on the Junction project came in at an estimated $116 million. The true value of the projects exceeds $300 million. We know that taxpayers will be paying for these projects for decades to come.
The real issue is we have no way of knowing what all of this will cost. While it’s clear to me that without significant growth and development we can’t afford all of these projects, it is equally clear to me that without investments of these kinds we can’t hope to attract and retain new businesses, investments and citizens.
Lurking in the background of this planned spending is a $1.2-billion infrastructure upgrade and replacement cost. The fact that we aren’t sure of the real costs of these projects and how they will work together to further the development and growth of our city, speaks volumes to the way in which the process was managed.
The fact that we aren’t aware of the final partners in some of these projects demonstrates a lack of transparency. As citizens, we need to have a detailed plan for projects and growth that is both affordable and strategic.
Bill Sanders
Not a good use of taxpayers’ money, except for the Place des Arts. Spending $5 million to get a $30-million facility is a good deal. Now the fact that it was not designed with alternative streams of revenue is a bad thing and the fact that it is being built on city property, and therefore we cannot collect taxes …well, we can’t win them all.
The Junction arts and culture hub is a no-go for me simply because the city has done nothing to explore alternative sources of funding, and I feel strongly that the entire project was put forth to shut up the opposition to the Kingsway project.
The city designed a convention centre and is trying to sell it as a performance space as well. I can pretty much guarantee that the “950 retractable seats” will get axed as a budget concern and the city will get what they wanted in the first place, a conference centre.
What we want is a 1000-seat performing arts centre. Built by a developer with 50 to 75 alternative streams of revenue. Imagine a performing arts centre with 50 luxury apartments on top. The project becomes self-funded. That’s the model that appeals to me.
To learn more about the city’s mayoral candidates, visit Sudbury.com’s election website.
