Blame game flares up

By BOB BRUTON Barrie Examiner October 7 2010
They disagreed on taxes, on fixing the downtown, on service levels, leadership and spending.
They agreed to blame each other.
The eight men vying to be Barrie’s next mayor pulled few punches at Wednesday’s all-candidates debate in Georgian College Theatre. Harry Ahmed, Dave Aspden, Rob Hamilton, Carl Hauck, Jeff Lehman, Mike Ramsay, Darren Roskam and Joe Tascona argued for about two hours in front of approximately 100 people.
And, as usual, the talk turned to taxes. Tascona, the former Barrie-area MPP, i promising no property tax increase for four years if he’s elected mayor on Oct. 25.
“Barrie taxes are too high. There’s been a 46% increase in the last 10 years and we (the city) are no longer competitive,” he said.
Tascona has promised to stop unwarranted spending at city hall, use zero-based budgeting, have low or no debt and remove development charges to attract new business and more jobs to the city.
Hamilton, Barrie mayor from 2003-2006, doesn’t buy it.
“Promising 0% for four years will mean four years of cuts, underfunding for roads, firefighting, police,” he said. “It is irresponsible to make promises without a plan.
“Four years of no tax increase scares me and it should scare you. Joe’s 0% tax increase deal didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”
Before he became MPP, Tascona was a member of the Barrie council in the 1990s which had several years of no tax increases. That has been blamed for the city’s infrastructure shortfall and higher tax increases during the past decade.
Hamilton has promised no tax increase his first year as mayor, inflation-rate only hikes in the next three and an auditor general to review city hall spending.
Dave Aspden, the current mayor, was a member of the city council which didn’t raise taxes in the 1990s — but has changed his position.
“To even offer a 0% tax increase is unrealistic,” he said.
Lehman, Ward 2 councillor and the city’s finance committee chairman for the last four years, has noted these tax increases have been the lowest in the last decade.
Lehman doesn’t support a tax freeze which reduces service levels.
“We are now moving into a time of building a better community or entering a time of cuts and closures,” Lehman said.
Roskam didn’t offer an opinion on tax cuts, but did on spending and service levels.
“I don’t think making cuts is going backwards,” he said, and mentioned park maintenance. “Let it grow over with weeds. You can still enjoy a park with weeds. Someone will come forward with a lawnmower.”
Fixing downtown Barrie, attracting more business, jobs and people there, and making it safer, was also on the agenda Wednesday.
Hamilton fingered Ramsay, Lehman and Aspden — all members of the current council — for the downtown’s problems.
“In the last four years, the downtown has gone backwards. There has been no leadership,” he said. “The vision has fallen off the table.
“I’m the leader who’s going to restore the downtown and run it with an iron fist.”
Ramsay was having none of it, as Hamilton owns and operates two downtown bars — The Queens Hotel and The Roxx Nightclub.
“Rob, you saying you are going to crack down on the downtown. That’s like the fox saying he is going to reduce the number of missing chickens in the hen house,” Ramsay said. “We need a mayor who has no ties to any licensed establishment.”
Hamilton stuck to his original point and fired back.
“Mike, you have been there for four years and you have not done anything,” said Hamilton.
Tascona also blamed this current council for the downtown’s woes.
“They (Aspden, Lehman and Ramsay) must be held accountable,” he said, but singled out Hamilton.
“Bar owners do have a responsibility to make sure the downtown is safe. They are part of the problem,” Tascona said.
Leadership was naturally part of Wednesday’s debate too, and Aspden was the main target.
“There is a serious problem in our City Hall. Never before has the need for change been as necessary,” Ahmed said. “No more smoke and mirrors.”
“People are tired of politicians who can only attack (others) and take cheap shots,” Lehman said. “The mayor has only one vote. If you can’t work with the other councillors, you can’t get anything accomplished.
“That has been the problem for the last four years.”
Ramsay, Barrie’s Ward 1 councillor, agreed.
“The past several years have been a disaster in the mayor’s office,” he said. “We need a mayor who will stand up to the development industry, which is just trying to make as much money as possible.”
Aspden didn’t take that lying down, however.
“I have not jumped back and forth to other levels of government,” he said, alluding to Tascona going from city council to provincial politics, Ramsay running provincially and Hamilton federally.
Because the debate was at Georgian, there were also questions from college students. The candidates were asked about traffic and enforcement, as well as election funding and conflicts of interest.
Lehman said he doesn’t take campaign money from developers, but Ramsay asked what the difference was between developers and builders, or developers and planning consultants, etc.
Lehman muttered that wasn’t a fair question.
“It’s not a cheap shot, it’s looking at the facts,” Ramsay said.
Aspden said people should be able to contribute to election campaigns, even if they don’t live in the municipality.
“If you limit it too much, you will only have the rich and famous sitting here (at all-candidates debates),” he said.
Hamilton has suggested a property tax credit for donations to municipal election candidates, which could also increase voter turnout.
“That would give a lot more people a stake in the game,” he said.
Hauck says he’s financing his own campaign, but agreed contributions can make a difference.
“Money does buy power,” he said.
The candidates were also asked what they would do to help Georgian College’s university partnership program, and link it to job creation.
Ramsay took that question another way.
“We should have our own university. It is because of poor political representation (that Barrie doesn’t have one),”  he said, as Tascona visibly bristled.
Tascona said the university partnership program plan was endorsed by Georgian College when he was Barrie-area MPP, but that the city could use its own university now.
Ramsay also mentioned how slow construction has been on the St. Vincent Street bridge over Highway 400.
“I swear the pyramids of Egypt were built faster,” he said of project, which was scheduled to be completed by the end of this month, but now won’t be done until November’s end.
That’s a provincial Ministry of Transportation construction project.
Wednesday’s debate was sponsored by Georgian College and The Barrie Examiner.