Post by Max on Apr 16, 2007 17:30:43 GMT -3
The word "Sudbury" still signifies a bad joke for many Canadians, and, today, we suffer from an identity crisis that should be immediately resolved in order to develop a preserved pride within our city. We are known be so many names and maxims that some residents don't even know what our actual name or nickname are. City of Greater Sudbury, Greater City of Sudbury, Greater Sudbury, Grand Sudbury, Sudbury, CGS, Nickel Belt, Nickel Capital, Nickel City, City of Lakes, My Sudbury, and Community of Communities. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark coined the phrase Community of Community and it's baffling council would adopt it simply because a solutions team recommended it. How is adding another maxim a solution?
In my view, our city needs one name and one motto...and a mayor with visionary business sensibilities.
In 1883, James Worthington named our city after his wife's birthplace in England. Other than history, our name has no relationship to anything local. The Municipal Act allows any city to sell naming rights or to legally change its name. Recently the Institute of Advanced Studies, a research and training centre based in Yokohama, Japan that is part of the United Nations University, accredited Sudbury as a Regional Centre of Expertise, and if we actually had a expert city leader, we'd try and sell our city naming rights for 2 billion $. CVRD Inco would not make a great city name, but for 2 billion $, I think the citizenry could live with Inco or Xstrata, Ontario. Maybe we'd receive no offer at all, maybe a low ball offer, maybe a bidding war would erupt, or perhaps both good corporate citizens would offer us 1 billion $ each and we could name our community Nickel City, Ontario, with the maxim the Nickel City of Lakes. The most powerful thing any corporation can do for a society and location in which it operates is help that community create a prosperous economy. CVRD Inco is estimated to have 370 billion $ in historic and proven reserves while Xstrata have 100s of billions more; the rock body fuel price continues to rise. For exclusive 100 year naming rights, 2 billion $ for either company equates to a mere 18 months of rock production of the buried bounty beneath our boots.
With a strategic 2 billion $ tourism, cultural and leisure investment, we could completely diversify our light and heavy industrial economy and transform our city into an important cosmopolitan tourist mecca by creating a sophisticated four season Magnetic North vacation destination diverse enough to appeal to all demographics. Tourism is the world's largest industry and any smart community should obviously be interested in in creating a revenue windfall and 100s of new jobs. By 2010 one billion tourists will undertake international tourist activities and spend 1 trillion $ while spending 9 billion nights away from home. Canada is the 7th top tourist destination in the world and tourism in Canada employs 600,000 direct and 1 million indirect jobs. In 2006, Canadian tourism spending improved by 4.6 percent to 47 billion $ while recreation enjoyed a 4.5 percent increase, but has our city kept pace? No!
The 3 rules of building for future development are; 1) build, 2) build at the lowest cost, and 3) if rule number 1 and 2 conflict rule number 1 takes procedure. The maxim "if you build it they will come" still applies today, however, if we don't build it, of course, they can't come. The time is ripe to add to our trophy case and leapfrog the tourism pack by injecting growth steroids into our tourism development veins. A happy tourist is a powerful word-of-mouth advertiser and would make a great city brand Evangelist once they leave our magnetic gates to return home with positive infectious chatter about our city. By adopting pro-growth-mania dynamics, this venture could morph into a 3 billion $ development if we work hand-in-glove with private sector partners.
The province owns our city and would inherit all newly constructed tourism and leisure facilities arising from the naming rights sale, thus the winning bidder could help our city prosper even more by demanding the province match the bid or there is no deal; which would double our take to 4 billion $. Add the possibility of requiring a federal government matching contribution and our future only gets brighter. Would the province be willing to lose 2 billion $ in new free assets by refusing to match the winning bidder? I don't think so, because, after all, their matching contribution is being invested in a city they already own. New jobs generate more employment insurance premiums, GST, sales, property, education, gas and income tax, while reducing unemployment benefit payouts, GST rebates, processing costs, unskilled and semi-skilled welfare rolls, welfare health care benefits, out of wedlock births, the use and sale of illicit drugs, crime rates, policing, prosecution and prison costs, so both senior levels of government have a vested interest and both eventually recoups their entire investment.
Investing 1 billion provincial matching $ in Coniston's Twin Stacks recycled comeback would create a massive eco-industrial science park consisting of two to four 21st century state-of-the-art mega-wattage Waste to Energy incinerator power plants that would green up the province and turn down the earth's thermostat by eliminating landfills in several Ontario cities. Landfills produce methane gas and emissions are not being monitored. There are also no monitoring or prevention methods occurring to stop the seepage of other nasty co<ktails of chemical liquids that are right now leaking from our landfills and contaminating our groundwater system. While the atmosphere can absorb and cleanse itself of any emissions our water sheds are not self-cleansing. After C02, methane gas is the next most important greenhouse gas and will cause 15 percent of all global warming experienced this century, and methane gas contributes 3 percent of Canada's greenhouse gas.
Incinerators have been scientifically baptized and safely used throughout the world for 35 years and their inefficiencies are rich in myth and it's slippery Canadian ally, tradition. However, many cities and countries have been busy proving the skeptical hardcore eco-groupies wrong. One of the most abused aspects of incinerators use by skeptics is that the air will become a cesspit like atmosphere. Myths are not basis for policy and a good dose of reality might be better. The air shed does not have a border and incinerators are used in Montreal, Brampton, New York State, Michigan, New Jersey and Minnesota, so incinerator emissions are already in the great aerial ocean that surrounds us all. Minneapolis St. Paul Minnesota has 1000 lakes and no side effects from their incinerator. Importantly, every city in Ontario and elsewhere already cremates humans and pets and no one is calling for a ban.
In Europe, 400+ Waste to Energy plants exist, as it's illegal to landfill anything combustible. We need to copycat this trend-true low carbon economy direction as incinerating garbage is a smart form of recycling, and in ecological terms, our sacred lands just can't afford another century like the past one. What is needed to pass the Sudbury Star and Northern Life front page test is greater understanding about recycling and incinerators. Cars are doing more damage to our environment and no one is calling for a ban on cars. Moreover, the greens have failed to reduce the consumption and production of garbage and no one anywhere has a rubbish free day, and no one is calling for one. Thus, based on current trends, our throwaway society would continue to supply a lifetime of incinerator feedstock. We also need to come to grips with our carbon footprint, and by becoming the provinces kidney, this renewable energy field would import up to 1 billion carbon currency $ and create 1000+ cleaner economy jobs for our citizens. One thousand 45,000 $ a year jobs would have a 45 million $ annual impact on our city! To further power our economy, this eco-friendly trash to cash idea would generate more revenue from the electricity we produce, which would be sold to the winning bidder at a discount rate to increase the incentive to buy our city naming rights. With a projected 100 more years of mining, and given the price of electricity and insatiable volume demand, the saving are large while the payback period is small so eventually the winning bidder also recoups their entire investment. When seen in this light, one can understand why there may be interest in buying our naming rights and why a bidding war might erupt despite the large-scale upfront investment.
Other factors worth noting are: Heat from the plant can be harvested and sold to homeowners in Coniston. CVRD Inco &/or Xstrata, and possible more, can taken off the provincial power grid freeing much-needed electricity for the Province. The province can eliminate recycling education and reallocate those funds to this project with no increase in cost. Cities who supply us garbage can eliminate recycling education cost and apply those funds to the tipping fees we would charge. All household food scraps will be turned into high grade compost and sold. Food scraps would also be used in the production of Global Worming. A Red Wiggler Worm eats one and half times its body weight every day. The worm then excretes a soil-nutrient material called worm castings. Global Worming Worm Tea is created through a brewing process which runs distilled water through Red Wiggler worm castings, the nutritious elements and microorganisms of the castings are captured in a concentrated liquid form. By using Global Worming Worm Tea on your plants and gardens, you put healthy microorganisms back into the soil where they thrive and multiply. While Global Worming Worm Tea is in a concentrated form, it is an all-natural soil amendment, so you cannot over use or burn out your plants. Global Worming Worm Tea can be sprayed directly onto your plants and will act as an insecticide. It can be added to a compost pile to accelerate the composting process. Larger quanities of Global Worming Worm Tea can also be used to inhance the soil quality of your lawn. Ontario throws away some 4 million tons of food scraps every year, and by eliminating materials from going into landfills we would eliminate future landfill methane gas emissions. Incinerator bottom ash can be made into bricks, used for backfilling new road construction and excess ash can be stored in exhausted mines. Aluminum and tin cans, plastic and glass bottles can be recycled and sold, or better yet, turned into an actual finished product manufactured right here and reverse supply chain logistics would return goods to southern and eastern Ontario markets. Automobile tires could, and should be acquired for recycling. Canada discards 30 million tires each year. Tires can be melted down and mixed with incinerator bottom ash to produce vulcanized rubber which is used to patch roads. Shredded rubber and be used for roofing, playgrounds, bases for outdoor rinks and walking trails. Reverse polymusization is a process used to reduce tires to oil, carbon black and steel. From one 20 pound tire, 7.5 pounds of carbon black and 2 pounds of steel are recovered and the remainder of the tire can be used in the production of electricity. From every 3000 tires or 27 tons, 11.5 tons o carbon black, 7.5 tons of oil and 3 tons of steel are produced. Steel is sold for recycling and carbon black is used for new rubber production or other feedstock, and new tire production uses 65 percent of the world's carbon black production.
The Twin Stacks and its vast empty surrounding space is the ideal place and the drawing card for this venture. Acquiring smart garbage would turn us into the Saudi Arabia of recycling and having identified at least 9 viable recyclable products this project could be our Bank of Tomorrow and employ up to 2000 people when construction and spin off jobs are included. Two Thousand 45,000 $ a year jobs would have a 90 million $ impact on our city. This project would also require highway 69 to be four-laned sooner due to the increase in truck traffic, and a rock-faced Mount Trashmore Monument could also be constructed to recognize our eco-efficient green status. Hah!
This would leave us 1 billion provincial matching $ to: relocate downtown & Flour Mill CP & CN freight rail yards and reroute trains around city core, add 4 high speed light rail commuter trains to service edge neighbourhoods with downtown on existing tracks, build Grand Central Station downtown for CP & CN passenger trains, new commuter trains, city and Greyhound buses, convert other tracks to bike-blade-walking-cross country skiing trails (250 million), resurface roads (200m), refurbish both existing hospitals solving our long-term bed shortage while creating more new jobs and freeing up 100 beds in our one site hospital (100m), build auto, bike, snowmobile race track speedway & drag strip (50m), lower property taxes, water & sewer rates (50m), build Barrydowne extension to Notre Dame Ave. in Hanmer with interconnecting roads to Main St. in Val Caron & O'Neil Dr. in Garson (45m), build Maley Drive extension to 69 (25m), complete four-laning to Wahnapitae (25m) Chelmsford (15m), Capreol (15m) Ramsay Lake Road to LU (10m), build downtown Carillon Bell Tower, floral clock at Bell Park, numerous video bill boards, fountains & beautification projects throughout entire city (10m), extend airport runway (3m), change city signage (2m), and piggy bank 200 million $.
Our city already has some 110m $ in cash. We would recoup up to 60m $ once the CP land downtown was sold for development, giving us a sum of up to 370m $ in cash. The city should also combat waste, and could bank another 2.7 billion $ by divesting itself of our turn key downtown parking lot lagoons, water & sewer plants, newly constructed Waste to Energy plant, and one refurbished hospital--or both if the Sisters of Saint Joseph's Health Centre agreed--by selling to existing private sector operators and save us good amounts of wasted money. This would bring our cash holdings to over a mind boggling 3 billion $ for future development maneuverability! This is on top of the 3 billion $ spent on new roads and attractions but does not include any potential federal government matching contributions, which could be up to 2 billion $. Divestiture eliminates ratepayer funded operating expenses, adds new ratepayers to the tax roll, generates new business licence, vehicle registration, fuel and income tax revenues that local government currently does not pay, and still allows citizens access to all services and facilities. The belief that government can do things cheaper than the private sector because it does not make a profit is a flagrant fallacy and reveals a serious degree of economic ignorance. At first sight this may appear contrary to commonsense, but the quest for profits always leads to greater efficiency, and what citizens do not commonly realize is that they are being misled to the extreme about service costs because even government doesn't know the actual cost of the services they provide; and annual government surplus' &/or deficits evidence this fact.
Anyone paying even a whisper of attention should now understand that we don't have a money problem; we just still have a leadership one. Leadership is not a secret code; it is an Art. A leader is only as good as his word and without trust you cannot lead. The difference between being a leader and a laggard is measured in months, not years, and our mayor has proven himself to be a untrustworthy flip-flopping laggard who lied his way into office and whose inside-the-box building block idea pipeline has already run dry. A leader must be a multi-minder futurologist who is innovative and revolutionary ready, but stagnation, not innovation, continues to be the rule of thumb with the suits at city hall. You cannot learn anything positive from a flawed leader and the height of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting a different result. A leader does not solely rely on hand-me-down economies and yesterday's wisdom, but quickly attains a deep understanding of capacity building techniques and key drivers in economic development, and builds on this understanding. Innovation is not a dirty word and preserving the status quo is not a quality trait of leaders. A mayors job is to raise the city's IQ, to be alert to future trends, be able to interpret what they see, and provide future-based answers. This is the hallmark raw ingredient in the makeup of leadership, for in the age of revolution, the future is not more of the past; it's profoundly different than the past.
As the portfolio of possibilities is endless our city should no longer sit back and just polish yesterday's apple; we must think outside the square, heat up the city's thermostat and innovate by planting new apple trees to grow a wisdom economy; and this wise intoxicating prosperity plan is simple to understand, easy to implement, and as win win as it gets! However, despite this scenario planning no scheme is without flaws, and without a buyer, selling our city naming rights and water & sewer plants won't work, but what isn't tried won't work either, as you can't harvest what you haven't planted. Conversely, you can reap what you sow and if this seed took root and grew the only thing our city name would be good for is a tombstone!
The anti-growth, heritage loving, status quo defender or skeptical reader might challenge my hypothesis but the bottom line is this: Do citizens really care what our city name is or should we care more about our quality of life?
In the beginning, a new idea always has only one believer at first, and those who can envision a new reality are always outnumbered by those who cannot. Whatever our metropolis name might be we'd still live in the District of Sudbury and always have New Sudbury within our community. Meeting the dual demands of smart growth and lower taxes hinges on generating virgin revenue sources, and making our city more multifaceted in the tech and non-tech economies is the key to unlocking a more prosperous era and the formula for retaining our youth and professionals. With all of this in mind, there is simply no reason why we should continue jaywalking through history as a have-less city; yet this noble and innovative rich idea is completely AWOL in the mayor's play-book because he is a prisoner of his own dogma.
It's time to clean up our logic and exploit the practical side of idealism to fuel growth and safe crack our future by trying to sell our naming rights &/or water-sewer plants to give our city a much-needed economic face-lift and our ratepayers a much-needed tax break. This notion may be considered a Herculean task by some, but in truth we have absolutely zero to lose and everything to gain by putting our best shoe forward to test the water with one foot. To not do so is crystal clear nonsense, as doing so is a free very non-technical task for this alleged Regional Centre of Expertise, which raises one simple and important question: Where is the leadership in this city?
It's obvious to me; it doesn't exist and our politicians don't care. People who do, must. Period.
In my view, our city needs one name and one motto...and a mayor with visionary business sensibilities.
In 1883, James Worthington named our city after his wife's birthplace in England. Other than history, our name has no relationship to anything local. The Municipal Act allows any city to sell naming rights or to legally change its name. Recently the Institute of Advanced Studies, a research and training centre based in Yokohama, Japan that is part of the United Nations University, accredited Sudbury as a Regional Centre of Expertise, and if we actually had a expert city leader, we'd try and sell our city naming rights for 2 billion $. CVRD Inco would not make a great city name, but for 2 billion $, I think the citizenry could live with Inco or Xstrata, Ontario. Maybe we'd receive no offer at all, maybe a low ball offer, maybe a bidding war would erupt, or perhaps both good corporate citizens would offer us 1 billion $ each and we could name our community Nickel City, Ontario, with the maxim the Nickel City of Lakes. The most powerful thing any corporation can do for a society and location in which it operates is help that community create a prosperous economy. CVRD Inco is estimated to have 370 billion $ in historic and proven reserves while Xstrata have 100s of billions more; the rock body fuel price continues to rise. For exclusive 100 year naming rights, 2 billion $ for either company equates to a mere 18 months of rock production of the buried bounty beneath our boots.
With a strategic 2 billion $ tourism, cultural and leisure investment, we could completely diversify our light and heavy industrial economy and transform our city into an important cosmopolitan tourist mecca by creating a sophisticated four season Magnetic North vacation destination diverse enough to appeal to all demographics. Tourism is the world's largest industry and any smart community should obviously be interested in in creating a revenue windfall and 100s of new jobs. By 2010 one billion tourists will undertake international tourist activities and spend 1 trillion $ while spending 9 billion nights away from home. Canada is the 7th top tourist destination in the world and tourism in Canada employs 600,000 direct and 1 million indirect jobs. In 2006, Canadian tourism spending improved by 4.6 percent to 47 billion $ while recreation enjoyed a 4.5 percent increase, but has our city kept pace? No!
The 3 rules of building for future development are; 1) build, 2) build at the lowest cost, and 3) if rule number 1 and 2 conflict rule number 1 takes procedure. The maxim "if you build it they will come" still applies today, however, if we don't build it, of course, they can't come. The time is ripe to add to our trophy case and leapfrog the tourism pack by injecting growth steroids into our tourism development veins. A happy tourist is a powerful word-of-mouth advertiser and would make a great city brand Evangelist once they leave our magnetic gates to return home with positive infectious chatter about our city. By adopting pro-growth-mania dynamics, this venture could morph into a 3 billion $ development if we work hand-in-glove with private sector partners.
The province owns our city and would inherit all newly constructed tourism and leisure facilities arising from the naming rights sale, thus the winning bidder could help our city prosper even more by demanding the province match the bid or there is no deal; which would double our take to 4 billion $. Add the possibility of requiring a federal government matching contribution and our future only gets brighter. Would the province be willing to lose 2 billion $ in new free assets by refusing to match the winning bidder? I don't think so, because, after all, their matching contribution is being invested in a city they already own. New jobs generate more employment insurance premiums, GST, sales, property, education, gas and income tax, while reducing unemployment benefit payouts, GST rebates, processing costs, unskilled and semi-skilled welfare rolls, welfare health care benefits, out of wedlock births, the use and sale of illicit drugs, crime rates, policing, prosecution and prison costs, so both senior levels of government have a vested interest and both eventually recoups their entire investment.
Investing 1 billion provincial matching $ in Coniston's Twin Stacks recycled comeback would create a massive eco-industrial science park consisting of two to four 21st century state-of-the-art mega-wattage Waste to Energy incinerator power plants that would green up the province and turn down the earth's thermostat by eliminating landfills in several Ontario cities. Landfills produce methane gas and emissions are not being monitored. There are also no monitoring or prevention methods occurring to stop the seepage of other nasty co<ktails of chemical liquids that are right now leaking from our landfills and contaminating our groundwater system. While the atmosphere can absorb and cleanse itself of any emissions our water sheds are not self-cleansing. After C02, methane gas is the next most important greenhouse gas and will cause 15 percent of all global warming experienced this century, and methane gas contributes 3 percent of Canada's greenhouse gas.
Incinerators have been scientifically baptized and safely used throughout the world for 35 years and their inefficiencies are rich in myth and it's slippery Canadian ally, tradition. However, many cities and countries have been busy proving the skeptical hardcore eco-groupies wrong. One of the most abused aspects of incinerators use by skeptics is that the air will become a cesspit like atmosphere. Myths are not basis for policy and a good dose of reality might be better. The air shed does not have a border and incinerators are used in Montreal, Brampton, New York State, Michigan, New Jersey and Minnesota, so incinerator emissions are already in the great aerial ocean that surrounds us all. Minneapolis St. Paul Minnesota has 1000 lakes and no side effects from their incinerator. Importantly, every city in Ontario and elsewhere already cremates humans and pets and no one is calling for a ban.
In Europe, 400+ Waste to Energy plants exist, as it's illegal to landfill anything combustible. We need to copycat this trend-true low carbon economy direction as incinerating garbage is a smart form of recycling, and in ecological terms, our sacred lands just can't afford another century like the past one. What is needed to pass the Sudbury Star and Northern Life front page test is greater understanding about recycling and incinerators. Cars are doing more damage to our environment and no one is calling for a ban on cars. Moreover, the greens have failed to reduce the consumption and production of garbage and no one anywhere has a rubbish free day, and no one is calling for one. Thus, based on current trends, our throwaway society would continue to supply a lifetime of incinerator feedstock. We also need to come to grips with our carbon footprint, and by becoming the provinces kidney, this renewable energy field would import up to 1 billion carbon currency $ and create 1000+ cleaner economy jobs for our citizens. One thousand 45,000 $ a year jobs would have a 45 million $ annual impact on our city! To further power our economy, this eco-friendly trash to cash idea would generate more revenue from the electricity we produce, which would be sold to the winning bidder at a discount rate to increase the incentive to buy our city naming rights. With a projected 100 more years of mining, and given the price of electricity and insatiable volume demand, the saving are large while the payback period is small so eventually the winning bidder also recoups their entire investment. When seen in this light, one can understand why there may be interest in buying our naming rights and why a bidding war might erupt despite the large-scale upfront investment.
Other factors worth noting are: Heat from the plant can be harvested and sold to homeowners in Coniston. CVRD Inco &/or Xstrata, and possible more, can taken off the provincial power grid freeing much-needed electricity for the Province. The province can eliminate recycling education and reallocate those funds to this project with no increase in cost. Cities who supply us garbage can eliminate recycling education cost and apply those funds to the tipping fees we would charge. All household food scraps will be turned into high grade compost and sold. Food scraps would also be used in the production of Global Worming. A Red Wiggler Worm eats one and half times its body weight every day. The worm then excretes a soil-nutrient material called worm castings. Global Worming Worm Tea is created through a brewing process which runs distilled water through Red Wiggler worm castings, the nutritious elements and microorganisms of the castings are captured in a concentrated liquid form. By using Global Worming Worm Tea on your plants and gardens, you put healthy microorganisms back into the soil where they thrive and multiply. While Global Worming Worm Tea is in a concentrated form, it is an all-natural soil amendment, so you cannot over use or burn out your plants. Global Worming Worm Tea can be sprayed directly onto your plants and will act as an insecticide. It can be added to a compost pile to accelerate the composting process. Larger quanities of Global Worming Worm Tea can also be used to inhance the soil quality of your lawn. Ontario throws away some 4 million tons of food scraps every year, and by eliminating materials from going into landfills we would eliminate future landfill methane gas emissions. Incinerator bottom ash can be made into bricks, used for backfilling new road construction and excess ash can be stored in exhausted mines. Aluminum and tin cans, plastic and glass bottles can be recycled and sold, or better yet, turned into an actual finished product manufactured right here and reverse supply chain logistics would return goods to southern and eastern Ontario markets. Automobile tires could, and should be acquired for recycling. Canada discards 30 million tires each year. Tires can be melted down and mixed with incinerator bottom ash to produce vulcanized rubber which is used to patch roads. Shredded rubber and be used for roofing, playgrounds, bases for outdoor rinks and walking trails. Reverse polymusization is a process used to reduce tires to oil, carbon black and steel. From one 20 pound tire, 7.5 pounds of carbon black and 2 pounds of steel are recovered and the remainder of the tire can be used in the production of electricity. From every 3000 tires or 27 tons, 11.5 tons o carbon black, 7.5 tons of oil and 3 tons of steel are produced. Steel is sold for recycling and carbon black is used for new rubber production or other feedstock, and new tire production uses 65 percent of the world's carbon black production.
The Twin Stacks and its vast empty surrounding space is the ideal place and the drawing card for this venture. Acquiring smart garbage would turn us into the Saudi Arabia of recycling and having identified at least 9 viable recyclable products this project could be our Bank of Tomorrow and employ up to 2000 people when construction and spin off jobs are included. Two Thousand 45,000 $ a year jobs would have a 90 million $ impact on our city. This project would also require highway 69 to be four-laned sooner due to the increase in truck traffic, and a rock-faced Mount Trashmore Monument could also be constructed to recognize our eco-efficient green status. Hah!
This would leave us 1 billion provincial matching $ to: relocate downtown & Flour Mill CP & CN freight rail yards and reroute trains around city core, add 4 high speed light rail commuter trains to service edge neighbourhoods with downtown on existing tracks, build Grand Central Station downtown for CP & CN passenger trains, new commuter trains, city and Greyhound buses, convert other tracks to bike-blade-walking-cross country skiing trails (250 million), resurface roads (200m), refurbish both existing hospitals solving our long-term bed shortage while creating more new jobs and freeing up 100 beds in our one site hospital (100m), build auto, bike, snowmobile race track speedway & drag strip (50m), lower property taxes, water & sewer rates (50m), build Barrydowne extension to Notre Dame Ave. in Hanmer with interconnecting roads to Main St. in Val Caron & O'Neil Dr. in Garson (45m), build Maley Drive extension to 69 (25m), complete four-laning to Wahnapitae (25m) Chelmsford (15m), Capreol (15m) Ramsay Lake Road to LU (10m), build downtown Carillon Bell Tower, floral clock at Bell Park, numerous video bill boards, fountains & beautification projects throughout entire city (10m), extend airport runway (3m), change city signage (2m), and piggy bank 200 million $.
Our city already has some 110m $ in cash. We would recoup up to 60m $ once the CP land downtown was sold for development, giving us a sum of up to 370m $ in cash. The city should also combat waste, and could bank another 2.7 billion $ by divesting itself of our turn key downtown parking lot lagoons, water & sewer plants, newly constructed Waste to Energy plant, and one refurbished hospital--or both if the Sisters of Saint Joseph's Health Centre agreed--by selling to existing private sector operators and save us good amounts of wasted money. This would bring our cash holdings to over a mind boggling 3 billion $ for future development maneuverability! This is on top of the 3 billion $ spent on new roads and attractions but does not include any potential federal government matching contributions, which could be up to 2 billion $. Divestiture eliminates ratepayer funded operating expenses, adds new ratepayers to the tax roll, generates new business licence, vehicle registration, fuel and income tax revenues that local government currently does not pay, and still allows citizens access to all services and facilities. The belief that government can do things cheaper than the private sector because it does not make a profit is a flagrant fallacy and reveals a serious degree of economic ignorance. At first sight this may appear contrary to commonsense, but the quest for profits always leads to greater efficiency, and what citizens do not commonly realize is that they are being misled to the extreme about service costs because even government doesn't know the actual cost of the services they provide; and annual government surplus' &/or deficits evidence this fact.
Anyone paying even a whisper of attention should now understand that we don't have a money problem; we just still have a leadership one. Leadership is not a secret code; it is an Art. A leader is only as good as his word and without trust you cannot lead. The difference between being a leader and a laggard is measured in months, not years, and our mayor has proven himself to be a untrustworthy flip-flopping laggard who lied his way into office and whose inside-the-box building block idea pipeline has already run dry. A leader must be a multi-minder futurologist who is innovative and revolutionary ready, but stagnation, not innovation, continues to be the rule of thumb with the suits at city hall. You cannot learn anything positive from a flawed leader and the height of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting a different result. A leader does not solely rely on hand-me-down economies and yesterday's wisdom, but quickly attains a deep understanding of capacity building techniques and key drivers in economic development, and builds on this understanding. Innovation is not a dirty word and preserving the status quo is not a quality trait of leaders. A mayors job is to raise the city's IQ, to be alert to future trends, be able to interpret what they see, and provide future-based answers. This is the hallmark raw ingredient in the makeup of leadership, for in the age of revolution, the future is not more of the past; it's profoundly different than the past.
As the portfolio of possibilities is endless our city should no longer sit back and just polish yesterday's apple; we must think outside the square, heat up the city's thermostat and innovate by planting new apple trees to grow a wisdom economy; and this wise intoxicating prosperity plan is simple to understand, easy to implement, and as win win as it gets! However, despite this scenario planning no scheme is without flaws, and without a buyer, selling our city naming rights and water & sewer plants won't work, but what isn't tried won't work either, as you can't harvest what you haven't planted. Conversely, you can reap what you sow and if this seed took root and grew the only thing our city name would be good for is a tombstone!
The anti-growth, heritage loving, status quo defender or skeptical reader might challenge my hypothesis but the bottom line is this: Do citizens really care what our city name is or should we care more about our quality of life?
In the beginning, a new idea always has only one believer at first, and those who can envision a new reality are always outnumbered by those who cannot. Whatever our metropolis name might be we'd still live in the District of Sudbury and always have New Sudbury within our community. Meeting the dual demands of smart growth and lower taxes hinges on generating virgin revenue sources, and making our city more multifaceted in the tech and non-tech economies is the key to unlocking a more prosperous era and the formula for retaining our youth and professionals. With all of this in mind, there is simply no reason why we should continue jaywalking through history as a have-less city; yet this noble and innovative rich idea is completely AWOL in the mayor's play-book because he is a prisoner of his own dogma.
It's time to clean up our logic and exploit the practical side of idealism to fuel growth and safe crack our future by trying to sell our naming rights &/or water-sewer plants to give our city a much-needed economic face-lift and our ratepayers a much-needed tax break. This notion may be considered a Herculean task by some, but in truth we have absolutely zero to lose and everything to gain by putting our best shoe forward to test the water with one foot. To not do so is crystal clear nonsense, as doing so is a free very non-technical task for this alleged Regional Centre of Expertise, which raises one simple and important question: Where is the leadership in this city?
It's obvious to me; it doesn't exist and our politicians don't care. People who do, must. Period.