Commisso, who will be asking council Monday night to approve an independent, four-part master drainage study, said once the results are in, the city wants to move quickly to incorporate any recommendations into next year’s budget.  – Tbnewswatch June 25, 2012  Read full article here.

What is interesting is that nobody ever thought of doing a master drainage study until now.  Our high priced managers always seem to react instead of anticipate.

How can a city that takes so much tax money from its citizens, gets free money from the telephone company, raises taxes to renew its infrastructure, be in such poor financial condition? I would think that getting $17 million a year free and clear would make life easier for the residents of Thunder Bay.  It just doesn’t seem to have made even a small dent in the huge financial appetite this City has developed.

I believe the City of Thunder Bay has to be one of the most mismanaged municipal money pits in the Province of Ontario.  With some of the highest property taxes in the province and a big pile of free money, we still can’t do anything without running to the Province of Ontario for help.

When the size of our municipal debt is mentioned,  City Administrators always point to the $100 million spent on the new Water and Sewage Treatment plants.  That money makes up a large portion of that debt.  “Don’t you want to have clean drinking water?”  That is their mantra.

Yes, I do want clean drinking water.  I was told that I have had clean drinking  for the passed 50 years.  Port Arthur had clean drinking water.  Is that not true?  I also want a sewage treatment plant that doesn’t blow up every time it rains more than usual.   This is very important because when it does blow up, raw sewage is pumped directly into the source of my drinking water.   Size does matter when it comes to the capacity of a sewage treatment plant that empties into the source of your drinking water.  You want to be a bit liberal with the design parameters.  Error on the high side.

Evidently, building a sewage system  that can handle the flow produced by a 100 year storm event is expensive.  I won’t argue about that.  The City of Thunder Bay couldn’t do it with the first $69,000,000 spent on the sewage treatment plant.  Nope.

Soon, these managers will be asking for a raise.  Think about that.