Wed. Nov 7 2012: Exclusive audio – Mayor Katz faces media about Fire Station 11 bailout

Summary: Executive Policy Committee refused to ask any questions about the Fire Station scandal on Wednesday, instead choosing to hold their noses and recommend Council accept their sentiment to empty taxpayers' wallets of an additional $2.4M, choosing to rely on the Auditor to get them some answers ... some day next year. *  We still don't know why it took until August 9th for the Fire Chief Reid Douglas to learn that the St. James project was drowning in red ink. *  We still don't know why CAO Phil Sheegl has 2 different stories about when (in August?) he learned that Douglas had blown the budget. *  We still don't know why no one told councillors that the Roblin Blvd. and Taylor Ave. fire halls each went more than $600,000  over budget, until the bureaucrats were forced to reveal it in September to explain why they had run out of money for St. James. *  We still don't know what the budget of $4.1M was spent on in St. James, aside from $858,000 for the foundation. *  We still don't know what the extra $2.2M for St. James is paying for, or when the station is to be opened. What we do know, is that the actions at City Hall prove no one can be held accountable for your tax dollars because like a dysfunctional household, mommy and daddy will bail their irresponsible free-spending teenagers out; that budgets mean nothing to department heads and neither does the concept of written contracts or responsibility to taxpayers; and that when it comes to the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg, their election campaigning for the Mayor and various councillors brings dividends at no price for them, and at any price to the public. Listen to the audio of the scrum with Mayor Sam Katz facing reporters questions about FireHallGate, the cancelled cop shop management deal with Shindico, the backyard chicken lobby, and a joke in Yiddish I cracked that only Katz and Bartley Kives of the Free Press got, but it's pretty funny. ********* On Twitter: @TGCTS On FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/2344284529/ City Circus TV:  http://tgcts.com/city-circus/city-circus-current-season-episodes Season 1 archive:  http://tgcts.com/city-circus