Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cary Tarasoff critiques city spending in new financial platform

Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cary Tarasoff unveiled his financial platform Thursday. (Keenan Sorokan/CTV News)

Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cary Tarasoff says it's time for the city to get its finances back on track after building a reputation of overspending and mismanaging costly projects.

Unveiling his financial platform Thursday, Tarasoff highlighted several projects that have come in higher than originally budgeted or were approved with little engagement.

"I want to talk about saving money in simple places for the taxpayers," Tarasoff said. "Simple project goals with clear outcomes is really where we should be at [with] the city, and what happens is we keep creating complicated solutions to very simple problems."

Tarasoff highlighted the Dundonald Solar Farm and the permanent festival site at Friendship Park as a couple of examples of city mismanagement.

The Dundonald Solar Farm is the city's first utility-scale solar project, which is expected to generate three megawatts per year, enough to power more than 300 homes.

A 5.6-hectare parcel of land that runs along Dundonald Avenue near the Montgomery Place neighbourhood was chosen as the site. Originally expected to cost $4.25 million, but because of inflation and other cost factors, the total bill increased to $8.46 million. Rather than reduce the scope of the project to get the budget within $4.25 million, council approved the nearly doubled budget last May.

"That's one project that's off the rails," Tarasoff said.

In 2021, council approved the construction of a permanent festival site at Friendship Park along the riverbank. At that time, the cost of the project was estimated at $12.9 million. The first phase of construction involved building a headquarters building and public washroom facilities between Friendship Park and Kiwanis Memorial Park, which was completed in 2022.

Tarasoff says those washrooms are constantly closed for various reasons, and that doesn’t give him much hope in a project he says administration was determined to see through.

“Is this really a good location? They put it in the city center plan now, and they've connected to this park, but I'd say we stop what we're doing here, save $10 million. We go back to Victoria Park, where a lot of people actually do want to go,” Tarasoff said.

Tarasoff isn’t sold on the site being able to convince festivals like the Jazz Fest to move from Victoria Park when there are already parks and spaces in the city that effectively accommodate large gatherings.

With many people facing affordability concerns head-on, Tarasoff says the city needs to look at reducing its spending and holding off on costly projects for now.

“We've got too many people wanting to spend big money on big projects,” he said.

“What can we do better? Well, we have to try. It doesn't mean we're always going to succeed, but I don't see people trying. I really don't, and it's heartbreaking.”