It just goes on and on and on. Yes, this is yet another post on Calgary’s ongoing boondoggle the “peace” bridge. I will not refer to that bridge without putting the word “peace” in quotes because the bridge was never meant to have that name. The “peace” was added by council as public outrage was growing while Calgarians finally began to realize that city council was ripping them off to an estimated tune of $25,000,000 for an ugly pedestrian bridge in a spot where no bride was required. The naming was a crass move to try and tie the bridge into respect for veterans and it took unforgivable gall.
Some members of city council are now calling for a forensic audit now that it has been found that the bridge is going over budget. Even after cutting $2 million in landscaping costs (that we will still have to pay for eventually), the bridge from hell is still $200,000 over budget. Considering the re-welding of steel and re-pouring of concrete leading to 18 months of delays, I can see the reason for an audit. There is no way that bloody thing is only $200k over budget. I shudder to think how much taxpayers will be raped for when this is all finally over.
Here is a link to a great timeline put together by Jason Markusoff
Here is another story by Markusoff on the bridge today. He has covered it excellently.
And yet one more today from Jason. The poor guy must see that bridge in his sleep.
Now enough background and updating on that monument to Calgary City Hall arrogance and waste of tax dollars. What is important is that we as Calgarians finally get up and kick out these freespending fools who use our money for their idiotic vanity projects. Listed below are the remaining Aldermen who supported the “peace” bridge. If they are in your ward, please do all you can in 2013 to put them out of work!!!
Brian Pincott
John Mar
Dale Hodges (went into hiding for the vote and would not comment)
Gord Lowe (went into hiding for the vote and would not comment)
Last but not least by any measure is the prime cheerleader for the bridge:
Druh Farrell
Folks, if nothing else is to be accomplished in the next election, the removal of Druh Farrell from city council will have made the entire election a success for the City of Calgary. Druh Farrell is the only person who rates their very own category on my blog as the list of follies and foolish leftist things she supports appears to be nearly endless.
Despite the exhaustion with the issue and clearly growing rage with that wretched bridge, we still see Druh vapidly tweeting and celebrating the anticipated opening of this slap in the face to taxpayers. While most civic politicians will be wisely finding themselves on the other side of the city for the ribbon cutting on the finger-trap, Druh will be grinning ear to ear as she celebrates this boondoggle. She truly sees this mess as some kind of good accomplishment. Even Calatrava won’t come out to the opening. He has cashed his cheque and would not be able to hold back his giggles as he sees what he put over on Calgarians.
Druh was the inspiration for one of my first youtube videos when she spearheaded idiotically closing Memorial drive on Sundays in August in order to thumb her nose at Calgary drivers. She really has to go.
Please Calgary, watch the news on this bridge as it develops and don’t forget it when you go to the polls. We need to stop overlooking this kind of behaviour by our elected officials. It is bad enough that we will have to look at that ugly bridge for decades. We can at least stop having to look at the proponents of it in council chambers if we kick them out.
I am going to say 7 million will be the cost overrun. IF we ever find out.
This is a ******* outrage! If the city ends up coughing up another penny for this ****** Fleece Bridge, I’m going to go on a PR campaign to get their sorry asses voted OUT!
It’s a bit late to be closing the barn door now…
Well Rob, the latest story has it pegged around $5 million but I expect it to go up. City council is dreaming if they think Graham Construction is going to eat the bill for the incompetence of the Spanish contractor who fabricated the piece of crap.
I know it is not like we can tear it down and sell it now Max, but we had best make sure those responsible for this joke do not get re-elected.
Unfortunately I’m in Jon Mar’s riding. I’ve voted against the guy in the last election, but it didn’t help. Apparently there are a lot of clueless people in my area. And HOW THE HELL does “Duh” Farrell keep getting elected? Is someone putting acid in their water coolers every election? Guaranteed, if there’s a foolish idea being floated in City Council, it’s coming from one or both of these idiots.
Hey, you love the suburbs right? Well you probably didn’t bitch when the Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant got built for $420,000,000 instead of the $240,000,000 budget, did you? Nope, because all the greedy suburbanites need to wipe their arse in their giant new triple bathroom megamansions.
Give it up cowboy, and focus on fiscal irresponsibility that amounts to more than a few million. Things like ring roads, interchanges, and all the other bullcrap that Calgary builds to support the suburbs cowboy. I’m not saying it doesn’t suck the Peace Bridge happened the way it did, but there are far bigger failures happening in this City every day.
The good news is that I hear that Kevin Taylor will be running against Druh Farrell again in ward 7 at the next election. The other piece of good news is that Kevin now has managed to gather enough support in his ward and will most likely be elected alderman in 2013.
Look closely at Farrell’s involvement in two other influence-peddling schemes: the Louise Station deal and University City (LaCaille Group and Knightsbridge Homes, respectively). The former deal cost the City and Alberta taxpayers over $10Ml the latter was a very dubious approval of a community panned, financially-suspect development. These cases involved large campaign donations to Druh Farrell.
Even more disturbing is the likelihood that Druh Farrell’s victory was the result of electoral fraud. There was a sudden surge of pro-Farrell ballots, in the last stations to report results. In at least one case, groups of 25 ballots were ‘accidentally’ counted as 50, in one ward where ballots were recounted. The mess in Calgary, and perticularilly Ward 7, is serious enough that the RCMP should get involved.
The worst part is that Nenshi is telling everyone how against the bridge he is when he supported it before he began his mayoral run.
I remember reading the article where he gushes all over it in a glossy Mount Royal PDF. That was back when he had his regular op-ed columns on joyous virtuous of tax payer robbing civic socialism.
with all this bad news still coming out in another story jon mar is trying to screw the taxpayer out of more money for pet projects trying to wash his hands of all the red ink that he voted on with the rest of the nut bars I can only hope next election people are reminded that he was knee deep in all this crap he should be led away in handcuffs for abuse of power along with a few of his special friends in silly hall my god the smell and hot air coming out of that place is stifling
Cory, my comment was in regard to the audit, not your commentary.
Anyone involved in ward 7 politically should remind candidates, especially dark horses, that its better to condense the vote in this case.. Druh would probably be gone if there would have been 1 or 2 less choices on the ballot..
To look at what she has voted for though and why people vote for her, she has gotten things for her ward, albeit at the expense of the rest of the wards and at the convenience of other Calgarians. She is operating with a sole interest for her ward, which is not really the hallmark of a good civic representative.