STATE OF THE CITY
Don Atchison suggests residents should lower their expectations of city hall and police.
Saskatoon Mayor Don Atchison suggested residents should lower their expectations of city hall and police in his wide-ranging state of the city address.
At Tuesday’s event, hosted by the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, Atchison said “common sense” needs to guide city spending, and he lauded partnerships with the private sector that have removed some of the burden from taxpayers.
He made reference to former U.S. president Ronald Reagan while suggesting the government should not be seen as the solution to every problem.
“Government is not the answer,” Atchison said. “There is an important role for the private sector in our prosperity and success.”
In what sounded at times like the launch of his 2016 re-election campaign, the four-term mayor said Saskatoon’s diversified economy will help it weather economic difficulties like the drop in the price of oil. Atchison cited potash, gold and diamonds among the other industries that help make the city’s economy strong.
“We’ve got all these wonderful resources here, including oil,” he said. “We, in fact, have one of the most balanced economies in all of Canada.”
Saskatoon is building two new bridges and a new civic operations centre using the public-private partnership (P3) model, which Atchison praised for reducing the risk for taxpayers.
He likened his leadership of the city to his plan to run/walk 55 kilometres on June 21 to raise money for the Meewasin Valley Trail. He said he wanted to be the first to travel the trail’s new distance.
“No one ever seems to remember who came second,” he said.
Economy
Atchison said Saskatoon’s gross domestic product has reached $18 billion and that 50,000 new jobs have been created in the last decade.
Saskatoon’s population has grown by 80,000 people since 1994, when he was first elected as a city councillor, he noted.
“Twenty people a day are moving to Saskatoon.”
Modern money
Atchison defended the city’s $29.97-million contribution to the new Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan, which is under construction at River Landing and slated to open in the fall of 2016.
He said the cost of renovating the existing Mendel Art Gallery would have been $31 million.
“We’re getting a worldclass gallery that is five times the size of the Mendel,” he said.
The federal and provincial governments committed $29.76 million of the $81.83-million cost of the gallery and another $22.1 million is expected to come from private donors and fundraising.
The city is borrowing $12 million to build the attached $ 19.46- million parkade, bringing the total cost of the project to $101.29 million.
Cycling
Atchison insisted he supports protected bike lanes, although he was the only member of council to oppose a plan to install lanes on 23rd Street downtown this summer and add Fourth Avenue in 2016. He said he would rather see bike lanes that connect to schools and the University of Saskatchewan, where a lot of people already commute by bike. “Safe cycling lanes truly do make sense to me,” he said.
Crime
He said he found a recent stabbing in downtown Saskatoon “disturbing” and noted such attacks occur across the country. “Just because it’s happening there doesn’t mean it should be happening here,” he said.
Atchison expressed his confidence in Chief Clive Weighill and the Saskatoon police, but suggested residents often expect too much.
“Often we look to the police to do absolutely everything for us, and they’re just not set up to do that.”
In an interview after the speech, he said the 10 most frequent kinds of calls received by city police do not involve criminal activity, and pledged to work with Weighill on that.