Town's Spending Spree - Priorities?

The Town of Newmarket is on a spending spree.  All of a sudden, the Town seems flushed with cash.

$1,000,000 for a broadband pilot?  Sure.

Create a new 10-court tennis complex?  Absolutely.

Renovate the lobby of the Newmarket Theatre?  We can do that.

Build a new arena (either with Pickering College or construct an additional ice pad at the Ray Twinney Complex)?  That's certainly on the table.

Construct a new fitness center?  Uh huh.

New recreation facilities in every quadrant of town?  Nothing but the best.

A turf field priced at approximately $750,000?  Coming right up.

All of this sounds great - but are these really the priorities in Newmarket?

1)  We have the Town of Newmarket admitting that the current business model of the Theatre is losing between $250-300,000 annually.  Is a new lobby going to turn that losing streak around?  After spending $11,000,000 on renovating the Old Town Hall into another theatre venue, does the Town really need to pour more public funds into this money pit?

2)  Remember, when building infrastructure, you are planning for the future.  Today's youth are playing basketball, soccer, and road hockey.  Why is the town building tennis courts?  The town has statistics regarding the number of youth who play in a tennis league vs. the leagues of the other sports.  Their own numbers tell the story. I would rather that the limited recreation space was dedicated towards a cricket field than tennis in recognition of our town's changing demographics..

3) Another hockey rink?  Again, the numbers don't lie.  Youth involvement in ice hockey has been declining for years.  This isn't a good investment for the future.  I'm sorry adult hockey players but your numbers don't count.  We're building infrastructure for future uses and the stats don't pan out for continuing strength of adult league registrations.

4) A fitness centre?  The Town needed one years ago but because the Mayor was such good friends with Joe Persechini, the facility we needed wasn't included when the Magna Centre was built.  Now that Persechini's Gym is no more, I guess there are no further reservations for a town facility to compete with local private gyms.

Amazingly, the areas that need investment aren't getting any money.  For example, Newmarket sewers are getting old, but there are no ribbon cutting photo ops when new sewer infrastructure is installed.  That's why homeowners will have to continue to contend with broken watermains and sewer back ups into basements.    

And we'll continue to see yellow, bleach reeking water for periods of times as the Town will need to continue with programs to remove bio-film to keep our drinking water safe.

Traffic studies, residential street calming and other traffic related programs aren't getting any attention at all.

Those necessary but expensive infrastructure upgrades will have to wait for some day in the future when our current set of photo-op loving council members have been replaced by politicians who are more focused on running the town as opposed to cutting ribbons.