Bell: Calgary water pipe explodes again! — Farkas, fire city bigshot Duckworth

How the hell did this happen again?

That question is on the minds of people paying attention in this city.

There is another big puzzler on the minds of those who have followed this disaster of a disaster file, this painful, teeth-pulling struggle to get answers.

Let’s be frank. City hall bigwigs have been a royal pain in the butt. Giving the straight goods is not their specialty.

Now we have another water pipe exploding, it is just the latest from a city administration needing a shake-up big-time.

Something has to give.

Who is going to be fired, punted, given the heave-ho? Who is going to pay the price? Whose departure will trigger an attitude adjustment at city hall?

It’s Groundhog Day and it’s not even February.

We have seen this movie before. We didn’t need a sequel.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas calls the water pipe a ticking time bomb.

It just blew up. Again.

Farkas tells us he wants Calgary city hall to be boring. It’s not boring now. It’s vein-popping aggravating, it’s bumbling and fumbling wrapped up in bureaucracy but it is not boring.

It is still the city hall Big Blue Playpen and no one is having fun.

The city hall higher-ups call the burst pipe catastrophic. Motorists trapped in their vehicles needing to be rescued. Significant flooding. Boil water advisories. Opening the Emergency Operations Centre.

The question. How the hell did this happen again?

The explanations of the city hall movers and shakers would win them an Academy Award if there was the category of Best Butt Covering in a Supporting Role.

One of the people burping up city hall approved talking points looks very nervous.

Another comes up to speak and moves his lips and sounds come out but the words we hear mean diddly squat except to pass the buck to … no one.

At city hall, the buck never stops with anyone.

That’s why on every issue it is a merry-go-round, around and around hoping you are not seeing the game being played … er … how Calgarians are being played.

We are told to believe the burst pipe in question was being monitored continuously. Nothing in the monitoring indicated an issue. The system was working.

Then … Ka-boom! It was like an act of God. It just happened.

This is what we were told last time, in the summer of 2024, when the big water main burst made a major splash, international news.

And it worked!

The story eventually died out, other city hall stupidity came and went, and fewer than four in ten Calgarians eligible to vote made it off the couch this past fall.

Still, your scribbler had enough, isn’t infected in this epidemic of apathy and slams city hall with the question.

How the hell did this happen again? And who is going to take responsibility?

None of the city hall high-and-mighties are on stage or at the microphone to face the music.

Then David Duckworth, the big boss of the multitude of city hall paper shufflers and buck passers, jumps on to the stage. Someone suggests the scribbler’s question may have put the fear of God into him.

“My team and I are 100 per cent accountable. We’re accountable for this break. We’re accountable for the infrastructure. We’re accountable for all the services we provide to Calgarians,” says Duckworth.

We wait and we wait for the other shoe to drop..

We DO NOT hear these words.

“I am taking responsibility. The buck stops with me and I am resigning my position.”

It could have been so sweet.

But he doesn’t go there. Neither do any of the other handsomely-paid folks who have their finger prints on this file.

Taking real responsibility?

Forget about it.

Mayor Farkas says he knows it is frustrating for Calgarians. He knows this is not the first pipe break. The mayor tells us he cannot imagine what it was like standing on one of the cars waiting for rescue.

Farkas says the city council he leads will be “challenging city administration to a high performance culture.”

He says city council “will hold city administration accountable.”

Late in the day, we are told the mayor wants a city council gabfest pronto if a city-commissioned report on the colossal water pipe break in 2024, a look-see said to be gathering dust on Duckworth’s desk, isn’t delivered to council.

Either way, Mayor Farkas. Get out the pink slip.

rbell@postmedia.com