Originally Posted by SilentKnight

You pretty much nailed it, although I obviously disagree about the painting/lighting the old lift bridge. City council tried to justify it by saying it'll be a tourist attraction - but I say who the hell's gonna drive here (at night) to see an old, non-functioning bridge just because it has pretty lights. They did a great job lighting the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie, but the cost was shared by both sides and it still gets non-stop traffic and generates toll revenues.

As for our "world class flatwater facility" - true, they did a nice job with it. But it doesn't get used much...and the jury's still out whether it generates any significant revenue to the local economy. 90% of the time it sits unused.

You mentioned about Main St. It's actually making a bit of a rebound lately. Having the bridge closed almost the entire summer definitely had an impact on surrounding small businesses (a few were forced to close) - but you can definitely see a bit of improvement and investment happening despite it all. They built a new City Hall across from the old court house...which helped trigger somewhat of a slow revitalization.

But a LOT of people are up-in-arms over the bridge paint/lighting. Everyone's talking about it...mostly angry over the money being pissed away at a time when the rest of the infrastructure (roads, sewers, watermains) are falling apart. Much of the city's watermains and sewers are over 70-80 years old and the city loses up to 35-40% of their water through leakage...driving up our water bills.

Anyways...