First, there were musical handrails in a parkade and brightly coloured crosswalks. Now we’re looking at smiley-face speed signs and ping pong tables. You can’t blame people for thinking Victoria city council is occasionally prone to veering off the municipal straight and narrow.
But we’re not prepared to believe Nero is fiddling while Rome burns.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation appears to be of that mind, though. Last month, for the second year in a row, it put Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and city council on the “naughty” side of the federation’s “naughty or nice” list for frittering away taxpayers’ money in 2016. The federation noted that while raising property taxes, Helps supported spending $144,000 for two artists-in-residence, and another $7,250 for two poet laureates.
Now, city council is shopping for speed-warning signs that show a smiley face or a frown, depending on the speed of the approaching car, and is pondering putting ping pong and chess tables in Centennial Square. While the total cost of those and other items is not great, they are highly visible, making it appear the city is out of touch.
City councillors have a lot on their plate and a little dessert now and then won’t hurt — if it doesn’t divert attention from the streets, sidewalks, garbage collection and other meat-and-potatoes items normally found on the municipal menu.
As Helps points out, the federation focused on a $144,000 expenditure in a $230-million budge. “I am a supporter of the arts, and council is a supporter of the arts,” she said. “I would love if the Canadian Taxpayers Federation would keep their eye on the big picture.”
Victoria is wrestling with some weighty issues — the over-budget and behind-schedule Johnson Street Bridge, the city’s role in the regional sewage project, transportation, the role of police in handling mentally ill people and so on. Most of these issues transcend municipal boundaries, and yet, Victoria must do much of the heavy lifting.
So the occasional foray into the arts won’t hurt, and it’s OK if elected officials are supporters of the arts — if they are not imposing their preferences on the public.
Politicians were elected to gather information, ponder, discuss, listen to the experts and decide. Government would be unwieldy if elected officials turned to the public for consultation on every decision.
Yet there are opportunities, especially when matters move away from core municipal services, to let the people decide. And Victoria is giving its citizens that opportunity through its new participatory budgeting process, which kicks off today from 5 to 8 p.m. in the foyer of the Atrium Building, 800 Yates St.
This doesn’t mean the public will have line-item approval over the entire city budget — this meeting concerns a mere $60,000 to fund a community project or projects. The public will decide how this money is spent.
It’s a drop in the $230-million bucket, but it’s a good opportunity for council to learn more about what Victorians want their city to be.
But please, no more musical handrails. Keep the hanging flower baskets, though.
