GUEST OPINION – Budget and Speed

Guest Column by Darrell Dunn, Editor, The Weekly Bean

Budget time again

November 6 is budget day in Lloydminster … again. Actually, it’s the day that we get to
see the first cut of this year’s budget product. Administration and Council have been working on
this year’s product for a while now (as they do every year), and the choices don’t get any easier.
Budgets aren’t fun. They are about competing needs and wants. They are deciding which
expenditures are priorities, which can be put on hold for a time, and which are simply not within
the legal mandate of the city to entertain.

The budget is the result of a lot of planning hours, a good many discussions with a wide range of stakeholders and, often times, intense debates about what is important moving into the future. With several hundred line-items to wade through, the choices seem never ending against revenues that may or may not be dependable, depending on decisions beyond the control of the city, leaving the bottom-line gap to the taxpayer. Add to those uncertainties the impact of Trump’s tariffs on everything from steel, to trucks, to sewer pipes, to
fire truck equipment, police cars and everything else sourced from the good ‘ol US of A and you
begin to see why not having a crystal ball can be a problem.

Will the coming budget be a happy one? Probably not. Will it be put together in a
careless, cavalier manner without any real concern about meeting the needs of the community or
the impact on the taxpayer? Absolutely not. Will people accuse the decision-makers of being
insensitive, self-serving and removed from understanding the needs of our citizens? Of course.
That is the nature of the body-politic. Yet at the end of the day, regardless of how the audience
views the exercise, the decision-makers are duty-bound to come up with the most balanced,
forward-looking spending formula they can, to provide those service needs and social wants that
the people of this city demand.

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Hurry Up and Slow Down

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with speed-limit signs. I started driving early in
life thanks to growing up on a farm and having access to machines with steering wheels and
accelerators. I particularly liked the accelerators. I began rally-driving early and went through
various performance driving courses and have always loved competition driving. Then came the
police department years and the up-close-and-personal relationship with injury and fatal traffic
accidents; the majority of which involved “speed” one way or another.
The problem is physics. When you combine several thousand pounds of metal with,
many times, dubious driving skills, and add a healthy dose of “hurry-up” you begin to create a
dangerous formula. Put “many” of those vehicles into a limited space at the same time and you
create a circumstance that often keeps EMS, Fire and Police busy with clean-up.

The solution: Slow Down!! I would love to sound “superior” about it if I wasn’t so prone
to completely ignoring the admonition. Yet, it is the occasional devastating result that is the
motivating factor. I have cleaned up the messes, notified the relatives and heard the regret in
people’s voices for a second or two of lapsed attention at speed. Once done there is no going
back.

So, what has this to do with the new speed zones on 12 Street and 72 Avenue? They are
going down from 80 clicks to 60 clicks; due primarily to the massive increase in traffic and the
entrance/exit requirements of the new Costco, and it is a good thing in my opinion. Indeed, I
would strongly urge the city to consider following the lead of both Calgary and Edmonton in
setting residential speed limits at 40 kph. Generally, most people travel at that speed anyway; but
there are always those who are far too busy, important or cool to be bothered with such
“pedestrian” considerations. Just so you know, I am also a proponent of photo-radar. If you ain’t
speeding, you don’t pay!

Read more: OPINION – Why Remember?