Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cary Tarasoff critiques city spending in new financial platform
CTV
Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cary Tarasoff says it's time for the city to get its finances back on track after building a reputation of overspending and mismanaging costly projects.
Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cary Tarasoff says it's time for the city to get its finances back on track after building a reputation of overspending and mismanaging costly projects.
Unveiling his financial platform Thursday, Tarasoff highlighted several projects that have come in higher than originally budgeted or were approved with little engagement.
"I want to talk about saving money in simple places for the taxpayers," Tarasoff said. "Simple project goals with clear outcomes is really where we should be at [with] the city, and what happens is we keep creating complicated solutions to very simple problems."
Tarasoff highlighted the Dundonald Solar Farm and the permanent festival site at Friendship Park as a couple of examples of city mismanagement.
The Dundonald Solar Farm is the city's first utility-scale solar project, which is expected to generate three megawatts per year, enough to power more than 300 homes.
A 5.6-hectare parcel of land that runs along Dundonald Avenue near the Montgomery Place neighbourhood was chosen as the site. Originally expected to cost $4.25 million, but because of inflation and other cost factors, the total bill increased to $8.46 million. Rather than reduce the scope of the project to get the budget within $4.25 million, council approved the nearly doubled budget last May.
"That's one project that's off the rails," Tarasoff said.
