Transcript: The mayor has put out a new ad promising a brand new community centre in Willoughby. Let’s fact check that real quick. We need a new pool and community center for Willoughby. And the plan is simple. Replace Willoughby Elementary across the street here at Yorkson Community Park And build a community center here where the school is today. Two pools, library, three gymnasiums, walking track and senior center. All things residents asked for in the last two years of public consultation. The first part of this plan is building a brand new Willoughby Elementary School. The last school that got built, Joseph Durand, was about $52 million. Let’s call it $55 million today with inflation. This took from May 2023 when it was announced to September 2025 to And that’s from when financing was announced. Financing has not been secured for this one. We’re probably looking at three years if we’re quick about it before this new school can even be built. I can’t imagine they’d open the school mid-school year. Why would you do that to teachers? So likely this is like September 2029 before this new school is open. And then you need to tear down the old site before you can start construction on the new one. So you’re probably looking at like March, April 2030 before the community center can even start being built. But this is where the real stumbling block on that timeline is. So Burnaby’s building a community center very similar to what the mayor’s talking about. That one’s $260 At the end of the year, the township had $166 million of borrowing room left. Take away the $55 million from that school, and we’re at like $111 million. And there’s also supposed to be that performing arts centre we got the grant for. The grant expires if we don’t start building by early next year. I’m assuming Eric’s just walked away from that, so sorry performing arts community, like that’s gone. And then this slide from the capital budget here shows how much debt servicing we’re doing. So this is paying off the principal and interest. Last year, we paid $32.4 million. 3% interest is about $12 million. So we can kind of estimate we had $20 million of principal repayments last year. So that means we need about eight years worth of savings before we have enough money to actually start building the community center. That brings us to like 2032. These things usually take three to four years to build. So we’re looking at 2036. This plan is going to take a decade before your kid can swim in that pool. This is just another example about how this mayor and slate can’t run capital projects because they forget that constraints exist. There’s no infinite money ATM. They took a neighborhood scale community center, brought it to open house. They asked people, what do you want added in? So they kept adding in, kept adding in. And then they got something that they don’t have the budget for. We don’t have the land for. And now it’s going to take a decade. We could have a pool opening up in a couple of years if we just stuck with that original And I know the counterpoint is, oh, you’re going to build it too small. A pool that’s actually built is a hell of a lot bigger than a pool that only exists on paper. As always, follow for more Langley Updates