The City of Cornwall is about to write a cheque for over $2 Million dollars to buy back a large chunk of its Industrial Park as Loblaws is bailing on the 121 Acre parcel in the city’s industrial park.
Was it a game of chicken with its Quebec Unions for concessions? Part of the Shoppers Deal? Or simply cold feet?
Either way Loblaws gets 90% of its cash back, some great tax write offs, and the city and tax payers are stuck with the bill.
This could be why development fees might not be such a bad thing as you could credit businesses once they achieve targets such as actually opening and/or tying tax credits to jobs created.
There will be no hundreds of new jobs for Cornwall now, but there is a legacy of expense incurred for adding infrastructure, creating roads, and the city actually buying more land during the process which they now will also carry on the books for who knows how long. Clearly the city had a hunch that this was going down and sadly our Economic Development crew failed to find another suitor such as Giant Tiger that ended up building their own new facility closer to Morrisburg.
Is it any wonder why taxes keep going up with this sort of leadership and lack of vision?
Estimates suggest that the cost to taxpayers for the extension of the roadway and other costs could related to this deal could exceed $4-6M or as much as $140 per person in the city of about 46,000.
As the city’s former CFO and now CAO, CFN asked Ms Maureen Adams (who doesn’t actually live in Cornwall) for some numbers which she has not responded to.
The bigger question is whether this will add 4-6% to tax rates for 2017?
What do you think dear CFN viewers? You can post your comments below.
No sticker shock. The money for the road extension and site servicing have either been paid already or budgeted for in the future. The city will have a fully serviced site it can sell. If you are a business owner you’d rather have a fully serviced site, instead of having to lay out the money to have the site serviced. Yes there are unanswered questions but now we know what has to be done.
Everything is not always doom and gloom as it might appear.
Ma Ma Mia, money money LOL LOL. Don’t need to say I told you so. You all have absolutely no idea what is coming but I do. You all haven’t seen anything yet. There will be no jobs and there is no recovery at all. Canada like the US and the world is still in a recession and never recouperated. Things are going to get a great deal worse and many will cry in their soup if they have any.
Hugger the city purchased I believe, 250 acres, from the same folks that were involved with Pitt & 2nd and get some other love from Heart of the City.
Follow the money amigo. There’s a lot of dosh being swished around without results for the tax payer.
Again, look at how other communities are performing. We don’t need to create the wheel, but it’d be nice if we rolled it in the right direction.
Sloppy management and poor vision lead to reduced value for the dollar for tax payers.
The city might just take another farm for peanuts as they did for my Uncle
Either way the taxpayers got stiffed with the bill and no jobs to pay for the lunacy of the town. Mama mea my my where’s the money? LOL LOL. ROLF! Move over for me “The Dancing Queen” to celebrate such an insane idiotic boondoggle of a mess that Cornhole keeps getting into every time. Gee that calls for another drink this evening. I can’t stop laughing.
When Maureen Adams fails to come up with answers you know that they are hiding stuff. LOL LOL. ROLF! Money money who’s got the money. Dancing Queen ….
Gotta love this, “as the city’s former CFO and now CAO, CFN asked Ms Maureen Adams (who doesn’t actually live in Cornwall) for some numbers which she has not responded to”. Mr. Editor, she’s taking her marching orders from who else “LYIN LES” or, a new one, that I heard recently “UNDER THE BUS LES” ! That’s a keeper ? This fiasco will be sadly shelved with all of the other boners
A competent planning department would’ve seen this coming 2 years ago, but let smelly MORBERN expand in S-G (right next to a conservation area) ‘though the Loblaw developed property was coming available.
Same deal when Horizon Jeunesse was shutting down, it would’ve been an ideal location for the Service Canada Call Centre — in centretown near local businesses — but ReMax profits come first.
Here we go again…I know because I know. Sorry but that doesn’t have validity anywhere anytime.
HOTC in my opinion should be shut down. It’s nice, but obvious that they’re making up the rules as they go along. Take a look at who’s approved / not approved. Giving tax breaks are good IF the are needed. But in most cases they aren’t. The project will be completed even without HOTC funding.HOTC is just a way to further gouge the taxpayers. Enough is enough!!
HOTC gave an alleged $25K to lawyer Milena Cardinal for improvements to her building on Adolphus. Was that really what the program was for or was it a gift for pulling advertising from a certain newspaper? Ms Cardinal and Councilor Carr won’t answer that question of course.
Admin said “HOTC gave an alleged $25K to lawyer Milena Cardinal for improvements….” My point exactly when I said “that they’re making up the rules as they go along.”
Everything in Cornhole is based on a lie and the more that time goes on and a new liar comes aboard and the lies and corruption keep on growing. Nothing has changed in Cornhole but oh yes it did it got worse and worse and it will get even more worse as time goes on unless the sheeple get up from their slumber and act on what is going on but that won’t happen. BAH BAH Black Sheep.
Fish hook isn’t working!!
Mr. Editor,, explain how “HOTC” can keep their expenditures hush-hush ? Isn’t this tax payer based money that they play their little games with ? Our Mayor, Mr. Transparency himself, or as I prefer, “LYIN LES” seems very quiet ? What about the rest of Council, they all should be drinking more milk, the extra calcium will help to develop a back-bone ? Totally pathetic !
When you have LYIN LEZ on board with a no nothing, ignorant and laughable and pityful council you will hear nothing. These bunch of sheeple know absolutely nothing about what they are doing but they know one thing how to lie and how to dip their grubby paws into the til and laugh at the sheeple of Cornhole. There is absolutely no vision at all and Cornhole is for the dying and the dead.
If Maureen Adams told you all the truth it would cause many to have heart attacks and strokes even without this heat wave. People are going to pay high taxes for businesses leaving. The world is in a huge recession that can become a global depression soon so watch what you spend on we are in for very hard times. If Maureen came out with the truth people wouldn’t invest.
My husband read somewhere that there is going to be a vortex of heat and he asked me what the word vortex was – he is still learning English after all these years. LOL LOL. ROLF! I have a lot of laughs around my household.