In their approved budget for 2016, Cochrane town council lists as its top priority the completion of the Aquatic and Curling Multisport Center. The cash outflow to that project from 2014-2017 is pegged $45 million.
The two major grants to the town for 2016 ($4million from the Municipal Sustainability Initiative and $1 million from the Federal Gas Tax Fund) are entirely devoted to this centre. These grants will continue to be gobbled up for the next two budget years to support this project.
The much less glamorous, but far more crucial service of upgrading the town’s wastewater capacity ($24.6 million) is left to be funded through long-term debt and offsite levies (this means from developers who fund a portion of roads, water and wastewater). Council members deemed it so unimportant that it has been deferred to the 2017 budget.
This is going to pose a major problem given that the capacity of the system is 27,000 people. Since the 2015 census puts Cochrane at 23,000+ people (an 11 per cent increase from 2014), and if we continue to grow at that rate, the town will be past the maximum wastewater capacity by the time council gets around to start dealing with this issue.
Deferring the maintenance of critical infrastructure needs while building edifices that will only exacerbate the problem is not the kind of critical thinking we need to have at the council budget table.
Theresa Kline, Cochrane
