Oshawa council has taken a lot of flak in recent years about some of the more questionable investments it has made, specifically ventures like the Cullen Miniatures, which we are still paying storage on, the City Hall renovation and the General Motors Centre.

It is starting to become painfully obvious at least some of the blame has to go to the people who are running the day-to-day operations, particularly after the recent interview with the manager of the General Motors Centre.

"It's a journey, not a sprint," according to the man running the GMC. Meaning taxpayers are going to have to wait a good long time before the newest addition to the downtown actually makes money.

Pardon me for sounding silly here, but those kinds of investments are supposed to be made in a city in hopes the new facilities will eventually pay for themselves, because if they fail to do so the taxpayer is on the hook for the shortfall. Just this past year that bill was over half a million dollars. Numbers like that beg the question, why?

To be completely frank this facility has been up and running now for three years, and while that is a short period of time, the Civic was around for quite a long time and seemed to have at least marked the path of what works in this part of the GTA and what does not. Strangely, in the article the observation is made that rock and country work here, "but we can't just stick to that." Why not, if it works?

It would have been nice if there had been some speculation in the article about how long a journey is supposed to take. If three years is a short time, and in that brief span it is unreasonable to expect a venue to reach profitability, then what is a reasonable time? How many years do we have to look forward to seeing red ink at the bottom of the balance sheet for the GMC? Are we talking five more years? Ten? Thirty?

The comment that, "This building belongs to the community and people need to be supporting it, coming to the showsâ?¦" was also interesting in that it sounded like the excuse was being made that the people of the City of Oshawa have not done enough to support the facility. Does that mean it is the fault of the city that built the GMC that it is not financially successful?

The GMC should be about making profitable contributions to the culture of this city, not to mention paying down the mortgage.