In it’s December 2022 news release announcing the project, the City of Saskatoon said lights strung along the back alley between two pubs downtown were “made possible through a partnership with and funding from Downtown Saskatoon (the Business Improvement District) and local business and property owners”.

But it didn’t indicate that in fact the city footed the lions share of the bill.

Documents obtained by CTF indicate the City of Saskatoon spent over $90,000 on decorative mesh balls and lightbulbs to spruce up the alley.

The Prairie Director for the CTF says the City of Saskatoon needs to give its head a shake after this project. Gage Haubrich says, “Shining fancy lights on back-alley dumpsters is a garbage way of using taxpayer dollars.”

The project occupies an alley between 2nd and 3rd Avenues South which the city described in its news release as “one-of-a-kind lighting project invites residents and tourists to visit spaces less travelled and discover a side of the city they might have never seen before.”

The project was paid for by a combination of funds from the city, the downtown business improvement district, and some downtown businesses. According to the provided documents, the total cost of the project was $122,174. The city paid for $91,485 while the businesses and the improvement district provided $30,689.

CTF estimates the $90,000 of taxpayer dollars that the city paid towards the project is equivalent to the city property taxes of 37 average homes and comes at a time when huge bills are coming due. The CTF lists some of big spends like the over $17 million dollars to buy land for the proposed downtown arena site while projected costs for the city’s new library have increased to $79 million and City council recently voted to go into debt to cover extra costs from the latest snow dump.