Where does ICF money come from?
Phil Kent is not being very transparent in regards to the Island Corridor Foundation (ICF).
He suggests that a figure of $500,000 per year for ICF financing has been randomly “throw[n] in” by a critic yet does not offer the actual precise amount, whether it be less or more. Then he tells us that the ICF is “fully self funded by revenues internally”, at no cost to the taxpayer. This would be more believable if the sources of these monies were made more clear. Do these mysterious sources themselves receive taxpayer money? Does the ICF raise it all through bake sales?
Mr. Kent, blindly biased as chairman of the ICF, is paid to deny that a relatively level bike path to Victoria would serve more people than his one or two trains per day. His $500,000 (or whatever) per year, plus the multi-millions (!) needed to upgrade the track could provide low-cost, half-hourly luxury bus service on existing (and thus free to the buses) infrastructure — the highway. Now, that might get people out of their cars — which must be the goal.
Warren Chapman
Duncan