THE ARTS: When taxpayers help rich people hang pictures for their friends.
The Remai Modern art gallery remains nearly $4 million over budget, and questions linger over whether Saskatoon taxpayers should be required to cover that.
At Tuesday’s meeting of city council’s governance and priorities committee, Coun. Bev Dubois zeroed in on a $3-million contingency fund for overspending on the gallery.
City manager Murray Totland said the final cost of the gallery is still being finalized with the contractor that built it, EllisDon Corporation.
[…]
When city council approved the construction of a new gallery to replace the Mendel Art Gallery in 2009, the combined cost for the new gallery and the parkade below it were estimated at $58 million.
Currently, the cost of the gallery alone is now estimated to be at least $84.6 million, without the $19.5-million cost of the parkade. The parkade’s cost is being paid almost entirely by the city, while the gallery was built with a mix of federal, provincial and city money, plus about $24 million in fundraising.
I don’t understand the problem, if it is not significantly over-priced, if it is not gov’t financed, if it is not useless and ugly then it cannot be ART. Stop being such a hater.
/suggest checking EllisDon – somehow the kickback on this will be somewhat obvious.
I would suggest that blaming EllisDon for this will get the City of Saskatoon nowhere, and that for every change in the building design, they’ll have a paper trail leading to how much more it cost to have that work done, as per any normal building contract.
Has the gov’t never had a building built before? They choose the low bidder? oh!
I agree, Politicians cover their a&& politically – no paper trail, contractors cover their a&& legally – paper trail. No point starting with the politicians, start with what you know you can get and look for more crumbs as you go.
Canada needs the death penalty. Any employee or representative of the government, when caught in an act of fraud, gets the death penalty; no statute of limitations. Furthermore, if the criminal has already died, then execute a child, grandchild, sibling, …
I am sick unto death of people who get into “public service”, so that they can pocket your parking ticket when they see you throw away the receipt. I am sick of paying for palaces and monuments to Marx like this mendel shiit gallery. I am sick of 23/6/300 energy from SaskPower, when the company I work for gets into contractual penalties if there are more than 20 hours a year (99.9% availability) of unplanned outage on the software and systems we build and install. I am sick of potholes that are never fixed, and the workers on strike for higher pay that never fix them. I am sick of all the voters in Canada, who never make the connection between residential schools, rationed healthcare, fatness (ie the Canada food guide), and the people they won’t stop voting for. I am sick of paying a vig to Quebec so they won’t threaten to separate again. I am sick of the “Ontario and Quebec is Canada and nothing else matters” party that calls themselves the Sask party.
These kind of stories are a weekly occurrence in Edmonton. Yet the same clowns got re-elected to council last month. Recently a bridge opened two years late and the city assured us that the contractor would be paying late penalties. I suspect that either those late penalties were already figured into the contractor’s bid or that money in penalties is being siphoned off to go somewhere else.
“and the people they won’t stop voting for”.
Google ‘The Case For Evil’.
“Understand nearly all western nations and societies can be broken down between the good, the bad/(evil), and the stupid. Where a small 10% of the population is good. Another small 10% of the population is bad. And though both of these minorities are smart, the remaining 80% of society is stupid.”
It goes on to say the stupid are easily manipulated by the bad/evil to believe that being bad is actually being good and being good is actually being bad.
It’s been posted on SDA before, but it’s classic.
“Yes Minister”, a british comedy, discusses art subsidies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNw0P5ZMbA
These kind of stories are a weekly occurrence in Edmonton.
And then there’s the on-going mess with the LRT extension into the NW. From what I read, the signalling software still isn’t working right, even after two years of that line being in operation.
On top of that, there was the incident a few days ago in which two trains were running towards each other on the same line. Fortunately, the safety system for such possibilities worked like it should have.
Any bets that nobody’s going to lose their job over that white elephant?
“The Pentagon recently spent $998,798 shipping two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas and $293,451 sending an 89-cent washer from South Carolina to Florida.
“Over one recent 18-month period, Air Force and Navy personnel used government-funded credit cards to charge at least $102,400 on admission to entertainment events, $48,250 on gambling, $69,300 on cruises, and $73,950 on exotic dance clubs and prostitutes.”
http://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/50-examples-government-waste
Burning taxpayer money is wrong when the left does it but okay when the right does it — double standards, twice as good.
This not a left vs. right issue. It’s a matter of accountability and responsibility. This kind of wasteful spending goes on and nobody ever loses their job over it. Too many bureaucrats passing the buck and covering their asses is the problem. That is why the “right” is opposed to big government while the “left” sees big government as opportunities for graft and more unionized employees.
BTW, you are using an example of wasteful military spending in a recent 18 month period which means it probably occurred within the last 2 years. Remind me again who was in charge 2 years or even 18 months ago.
Here’s a start to cut wasteful spending. More please.
House passes bill to curb presidential pensions
The House easily passed legislation on Monday to reduce the pensions and federal benefits provided to former presidents.
Before approving the bill by voice vote, lawmakers expressed agreement that modern-day former presidents don’t need financial assistance from the government if they already earn salaries in the millions.
“This not a left vs. right issue.”
The difference between the left and right is that the left wants to burn taxpayer money on crazy domestic schemes; that way the money stays within the country. By contrast the right wants to burn taxpayer money on crazy overseas* schemes; that way the money leaves the country. (H/T to Daniel Hates Red Tories)
* like nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan
U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States Army’s finances are so jumbled it had to make trillions of dollars of improper accounting adjustments to create an illusion that its books are balanced.
The Defense Department’s Inspector General, in a June report, said the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. Yet the Army lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up.
As a result, the Army’s financial statements for 2015 were “materially misstated,” the report concluded. The “forced” adjustments rendered the statements useless because “DoD and Army managers could not rely on the data in their accounting systems when making management and resource decisions.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army/u-s-army-fudged-its-accounts-by-trillions-of-dollars-auditor-finds-idUSKCN10U1IG
“the left wants to burn taxpayer money on crazy domestic schemes; that way the money stays within the country.”
If only that were true. Recent examples in Edmonton. The LRT line referred to above with the signaling problem – the software company is French. The 2 year delayed bridge was built by a Spanish company using possibly sub-standard steel from South Korea. The Alberta NDP hired an Ontario company to do a retrofit of light bulbs in Alberta homes.
The money doesn’t stay within the country/province. It goes to the company who does the best job of wining and dining the bureaucrats/politicians. And lately contracts are going to whichever company can best fake their “green” credentials. You should see the green criteria the City of Edmonton is asking for just for a company to provide 120 bike racks.
http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/david-staples-does-the-citys-new-environmentally-friendly-purchasing-plan-make-sense
n regards to the bike racks, the city prefers manufacturers to meet the following criteria. “No components that are derived from the Earth’s crust (e.g. petrochemicals and metals), unless those ingredients are 100 per cent captured and reused. No components that are persistent in nature (e.g. plastic), unless those substances are 100 per cent captured and reused. And a production process that: does not contribute to the increased concentrations of substances from the Earth’s crust or the buildup of persistent compounds in nature, uses only sustainable renewable energy or energy produced in a carbon-neutral manner; does not rely on practices that systematically physically degrade land and ecosystems; and does not rely on practices that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic needs.”
“I suspect that either those late penalties were already figured into the contractor’s bid”
Likely the contractor will sue the city and win. Engineers likely designed something that couldn’t be built without serious alterations. Anyone bidding on a City of Edmonton contract would be advised to pad it by 50%. Absolutely everything they build takes extra years – the latest bridge 2 years – the NAIT rail line 18 months – the 102ns Ave. overpass over a year.
Are these the same people who SCREAM that NO PUBLIC FUNDS should be used for Sports stadiums … even IF they are NET economic benefits to the community. But … “the arts” … deserve every PENNY of taxpayer funding.
PS … too bad Saskatoon didn’t hire the Trump Co. to be project manager … because evidently … they SCREW all the Contractors, Arcitects, and Engineers, by making them EAT cost overruns and revisions. Or did THAT story disappear along with the 17 women who accused Trump of sexually insensitive comments … and groping … yadda yadda yadda.
is this somebody’s flag?
https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/voice-of-fire
art.
Art, Art, blew a fart and blew the whole thing all apart.
art.
eye of the beholder.
Spent the better part of the summer of 2016 on this project. Its an amazing building, that had its own unique (and not so unique) challenges to build – so not surprised its over budget.
When you get right down to it, $4 mill on $84 mill isn’t really all that bad over an eight year project cycle…
Ha! and what’s REALLY funny … is looking at the rest of this artists “work”. A box of colors and a straight edge … voila! … it’s ART !
Same old, same old. Politicians building monuments to their generosity.
The outside of the ‘Art Gallery’ reminds me of modern art. Junk. Want to see real art. Visit Italy and look at paintings and sculptures by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael.