When I read the article “2024: Community transformation” I couldn’t help thinking, ‘ohh no, not again’.
Cochrane has a sad history of politically motivated spending that has cost the Cochrane taxpayer millions of dollars. For example - when the Spray Lakes rec center was being built there were millions of dollars of avoidable cost overruns, and questionable spending decisions that focused on enabling the center to be available to the public prior to the following election. My comments are based from publicly available information and corroborated by talking directly to many of the people who were involved doing the work.
In the article it points to 5 different transformational changes, but all these examples miss out critical information. Item 1 (paving the Ranche and Glenbow pathway) missed the fact that a lot of people did not want the pathway paved. Item 2 (the Jumpstart play courts) missed the fact that this project is already facing additional costs. Item 3 (the 4th ave wall) misses the fact that you barely get to see the sign from most angles. We also need to ask ourselves, as beautiful as this sign is, is it worth the $250,000 that could have been used for other community needs? Item 4 (Centre ave finishing pavement) misses the fact that Calgary managed to pave almost all of Crowfoot with 2 layers of pavement without the traffic disruptions that plagued Cochrane efforts and without utility accidents. Item 5 (Hwy 1A/22 interchange) misses the fact that there is still an investigation going on for a sewer line accident that will cost Cochrane taxpayers at least $700,000, likely more.
But the biggest issue for me is the title, specifically the 2024 date used in the title. ALL of the projects will be completed in 2025, NOT 2024 as the title suggests. In the last municipal election members of this council used newspaper adds, made public update video’s that were clearly personal campaign advertisements and seemed to suddenly be in every photo imaginable. Is this recent ‘public service announcement’ a sign of things to come?!
Sadly, the public is all to familiar with these wasteful political games. But do we need to accept this, I say no we don’t! Ironically enough, the misleading title of this article got one thing right, in 2025 we do have a choice that could be transformational for Cochrane, the next municipal election.
I’ll be voting, I hope to see you there as well.
Dan Cunin,
Cochrane AB
