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In barely a week, Mayor Jim Watson has found more than $2 million to fill more potholes, hire more police officers and study a light-rail extension to Barrhaven. An election is in the air.

The pothole money is skimmed from cash that turned out not to be needed for a bunch of under-budget capital projects. Rather than putting the money into reserves, the city’s going to spend $1 million more on superficial road repairs — on top of the $10 million city councillors decided to spend out of last year’s surplus back before Christmas, and the regular $8-million pothole budget.

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Crumbling asphalt and concrete are very visible signs of a municipal government that’s not doing its most basic work and after eight years of thrift, Ottawa has a whole lot of them. Throw in a sense that gun crime is out of control and it might start looking like whoever’s in charge has let some things slip.

The police officers, 10 of them, are to be hired on spec, anticipating that in 2019 the federal government will cover their salaries as part of a national plan to fight guns and gangs. The city’s taking an educated guess at how much money it’ll get, with details of the plan still to be worked out. But Watson and Coun. Eli El-Chantiry, who chairs Ottawa’s police board, have decided to spend $660,000 to cover their salaries and equipment costs from October to December, and presumably the same again for January through March.