While "maximize profit" and "deliver shareholder value" are a recipe for predatory behavior when applied to government organizations and government granted monopolies there's definitely a need for municipal departments to pay attention to money input in relation to services output.

I'm unaware of the specific details but I suspect Burlington Telecom lit a bunch of money on fire chasing some noble goal and in the process compromised their ability to do some other key part of their job in a satisfactory manner. This isn't an uncommon failure mode for municipal government departments that suffer scope creep.

It still seems rather vague to attempt to blame "progressive policies" as somehow being opposed to just logical mathematics.

IMO after reading the it, this current plan is pretty far away from Progressive, so I think PC was off base anyway.

Municipal agencies are still bound by the constraints of resource scarcity — and the goal should always be to efficiently provide services to citizens without glut/waste. You're right that municipal agencies shouldn't need to worry about turning a profit, but they should also need to make sure they don't run at a loss.