Councillor says Oshawa could use proceeds to boost road safety
Dec 03, 2008 - 09:39 AM
Carola Vyhnak
OSHAWA -- It would make a dandy Christmas present for someone with the space. And it's a steal at $250,000, a fraction of its appraised value.
The miniature village of 174 buildings, vehicles and tiny people is still looking for a new home more than a year after city council in Oshawa decided to unload the hastily purchased treasure.
That's a big deal to Councillor John Neal. He's been fighting for safer intersections in the city's north end for years and the money could go to good use, he says.
"I'm frustrated because people are dying in my intersections," says Neal, citing a traffic fatality at Winchester and Ritson Roads last month.
"We've got a quarter of a million sunk into (the village). That's taxpayers' money and we've gotta get it back."
Oshawa bought the collection – a once-popular feature of Cullen Gardens in Whitby – for $234,000 last year after a closed-door meeting, but council later changed its mind about reviving it as a tourist attraction. Appraised at $678,000 in a staff report, the village failed to attract any offers even after the city spent $6,600 on newspaper ads.
With councillors' recent move into new digs at city hall, Coun. Neal saw a window of opportunity to raise the issue again. He's hung a giant "village for sale" poster on the glass wall of his office, which faces a public corridor and other councillors' offices.
The giant poster, trimmed with Christmas lights, is his way of being "proactive and festive at the same time," says Coun. Neal. Some colleagues are amused; others have told him to take it down.
"I told them, `It's my office and you guys bought this garbage.'"
An asking price of $250,000 is a "starting point" that would pay for lights and curbs at one intersection, says the Ward 7 councillor, noting four or five need immediate attention.
Councillor Louise Parkes, the driving force behind the miniatures purchase, criticizes Coun. Neal for linking city money to regional roads.
"He's making an unfair comparison," she says. "I wish he'd spend his time getting on the phone like I am, trying to find a buyer."
She called the village, stored at a works department depot, "a business in a box for the right buyer."
The subject of the miniature village comes up wherever he goes, says Coun. Neal, who's also irked because the $13 million renovation of city hall that gave councillors their new offices, "jumped queue."
Constituents constantly call to ask why they cannot get traffic lights in their neighbourhood, he says. "These people are trying to cross a muddy road with cars speeding by. Safety is a No. 1 priority."
The city is about to expand its search for a buyer, says director of finance Chris Brown. With the help of a real estate agent, it's launching a website next month "to market the collection to the world." If the miniature village sells before then, all they'll have to worry about is how to gift-wrap it for Christmas.
-- Carola Vyhnak is a reporter with the Toronto Star
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