Comment 73703

By Simon (registered) - website | Posted February 03, 2012 at 17:34:10

Not really a lot of information here - but I can take away the following:

  1. Memorial Ancaster, Crestwood, Maple Lane and the Education Centre require $28.7 million in repairs right now. That means the board has intentionally mismanaged these properties to the point where the have become cost prohibitive to upkeep - and therefore they retain minimal resale value.

  2. The board could carry on with status quo for $2.9 million LESS than the current Crestwood proposal ($31.6M Crestwood minus $28.7M repairs) - excluding the cost of operational savings - stated to be $1.3 million/year. However, the required repairs would drastically increase the operational efficiencies of each site. Bottom line - it will be pretty much the same cost for the board to actually take care of their toys rather than throw them out and buy something new.

  3. The current Memorial Ancaster, Crestwood, Maple Lane and the Education Centre don't meet their "needs". Maybe not - but packing everything into a giant parking lot certainly doesn't meet the community's needs, or the City's needs or the needs of pretty much anyone else except themselves.

  4. The board claims that they must sell the current Education Center property in order to finance the whole scheme. Where to begin. The board could simply take out a loan against the equity in their property to finance their renovations. Or they could sell the valuable Crestwood site - it is a (parking)lot bigger than 100 Main W - to fund renovations at the Education Center.

The board has closed and sold off tons of urban school properties over the years - and they are planning on closing and selling off even more right now - where has the revenues from all of those assets been re-invested? Its not like they have been spending money on maintaining their existing facilities. Finally, how is the Education Center property theirs to sell in the first place since it was given to them by the City (at the least it is highly unethical).

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds