A $30-million art centre is a luxury that city taxpayers simply cannot afford.

This city council has built a reputation for wasting tens of millions of dollars on unnecessary projects: (1) the construction of hazardous high maintenance, multi-lane highways through residential areas; (2) changing the historical character of the downtown area; (3) unnecessary sewers on Pine Drive (to name a few).

If the city council ever learns to manage its finances properly and produces a surplus, we can then indulge in luxuries such as the art centre.

In the meantime the city should focus on necessities such as road maintenance, bylaw enforcement, rational planning for future development, efficient waste collection and, most important of all, an alternative or supplementary police service.

These actions would have a greater effect on attracting quality businesses to Barrie than an art centre ever would.