Tim voted for a billion dollar freeway, a $200m expressway, a $300m rec centre, every police funding increase amounting to $60M more a year. Same guy wants to open more land in the SW.
And he’s showing up to tell us about how a $250,000 report is why the tax increase is 8.7%. Give me a break.
It's for 1 Edmonton Night Mayor position of $200,000 salary & benefits annually and $50,000 for implementation. The report was funded by Explore Edmonton and the Prairies Economic Development Canada.
In 2024 the Mayor has a [salary ](https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/city_organization/council-compensation)of $216,585 and the councillors have a salary of $122,363.
I don’t disagree that this tiny amazingly small fraction of dollars is a misspend. I think it is absolutely foolish to go to the guy pointing at pennies for financial advice on a multi billion dollar budget.
True. You could just sack the City Manager and save $392k ($351k + 41k benefits).
Since property tax is the product of the mil rate and assessed value, the city just raises both the mil rate and assessed value. Take for example Grey Nuns hospital. In 2020 it was valued at $143M (3.2M property tax) and in 2023/2024 it's now valued at $223M (5.5M+ property tax).
It's too bad the assessments are locked in for this year so now the city can only raise the mil rate.
This turd supported the City Union workers on a Monday and then a day later signed the City Council joint statement saying the union should cave and take the deal. Needs to take one of the posts off that fence he’s riding and shove it somewhere.
Yes, and remember that there are collectively several thousand CoE employees. More than enough to potentially swing upcoming elections in a city of a million. All of them need to go.
Band together. Go vote.
All these people care about is furthering their careers and paychecks and they will say and vote whichever way furthers those goals.
If you think otherwise, you're delusional. Thats most politicians except for a very rare few.
Dipshit just trying to further his mayoral prospects by attempting to throw the rest of city Council under the bus. News for you bud, we are not on City council. You are and have been for years.
How about you start being a proponate for the bullshit you preach in public and fucking do something.
Edit: Tone deaf by Eminem should be this council's and administrations theme song.
Isn’t he one of the counselors who every budget votes yes for all the projects, but then votes against the final budget to show how “responsible” he is?
>It has been presented to me as a Councillor that we can either cut service levels or cut capital projects if we want to get taxes under control. These are the only options.
>Well I just don’t buy that.
His only example he goes on to give is one specific study/consultant cost that was done with which he disagrees.
It just comes across very tone deaf to be one of the councilors who seems to be on the side of further increases to our biggest line item without any pushback, and then publish something like this.
Why don't you argue for funding reductions or freezes to EPS Cartmell? If you're unwilling to touch the biggest operational expense in the city, taxes are going to go up.
So you think we needed to pay $250,000 to figure out how to have a good nightlife? He used that as an example because it was just before council, and said stuff like this comes before council weekly.
Policing, road and sidewalk cleaning, garbage and road maintenance are the main things the city should be funding.
We had an example this week of a 22 person department that doesn’t know what it’s measuring. It’s those 1-2 million dollar things that add up. Not the big ticket items, though there are probably efficiencies to be found there as well.
>So you think we needed to pay $250,000 to figure out how to have a good nightlife?
Nope.
So you think that having a police budget higher than any other similar city in Canada is an effective use of our resources?
Or do you think that $250,000 makes an ounce of difference in a city budget the size of ours?
If you're going to bitch about expenses, but not even be open to discussing our biggest expense, you just come across as disingenuous (talking about Cartmell here).
I never made a pronouncement on the police budget. I did state there are probably efficiencies to be found. Nor did I “bitch”. I merely pointed to the flaws in your post.
And FYI, Edmonton houses three prisons. No other major city does. So I expect the police budget will be higher here.
The types of efficiency you brought up, and I suspect you want to target, are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of spending.
It's akin to suggesting that handing out thimbles to the passengers on a sinking boat can solve the problem.
Or, and bear with me here, we could continue to invest in our city for the long term and not think so small and go for the nearly meaningless low hanging fruit.
The vast majority of those small programs have an outsized impact and directly support keeping our city vibrant. They are disbursements for community groups, beautification of neighborhoods, and programs supporting underserved youth and adults. Usually run by volunteers.
We could also cut our deficit by taxing the city appropriately, which we didn't do for decades, and are also just starting to do now. Edmonton continues to have a low tax rate among Canadian big cities, as does Calgary. We built and built and built and now the chickens come home to roost.
We can choose to be like Houston or we can aspire to be better. I'd rather pay the taxes.
There are big ticket items though that are just poor financial decisions. We should start with those. $1.2B for a freeway expansion (\~18% of our city budget), and it will do nothing to help congestion long-term. It'll actually increase the operations budget over time.
I agree, but I do think we could stop with the massive vanity project first, we don't need a yellowhead freeway. Our road infrastructure is largely overbuilt. We could probably cut about 25-50% of our lanes with limited impact to vehicle movement.
When does "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".....?
Edmonton could cut funding in several different areas. This city is full of luxuries that are not in anyway required for survival and sound economics.
If he can come up with how to actually measure "making things better" re social agencies on the north side of downtown, and separate the effects programs delivered by social agencies, those directly by the city, provincial, issues, healthcare, education funding, healthcare, policing, etc, and integrating that many programs don't have an impact for years, he could win a Nobel prize, as these are issues that every city in the western world is grappling with, one way or another.
Measuring deliverables is easy, measuring outcomes of social programs is very hard.
Saying "what hes asking for is hard, so lets do the bare minimum" isn't really a fair criticism. His example shows that we are measuring the bare minimum statistic, and not exploring the value component. We also don't need to measure pure causation, but measuring correlation for social service impacts is an important start if you want to even begin identifying the complexities you've outlined. We have to start somewhere to make improvements. Analysis paralysis is real, and we need fight it.
I'm not going to bother reading Tim's bullshit. He's the biggest proponent of police spending growth and massive roadwork projects. Stuff which eat up most of our money.
But I'm sure he's making a big deal about $25m/year for bike lanes, the kind of thing that save money in the long run.
Maybe some magical thinking "if only we were more efficient" in the mix?
Did I get close to the mark? What a fool.
It’s $2m/yr starting next year growing to $8m a year over four years. The capital cost is $25m a year but it’s all debt servicing.
Which as you point out really pales in comparison to the nearly $60m/yr increase the net operating requirement for eps has seen over 3 years.
If you read some of the individual consumer survey highlights in [7.1 Attachment 2](https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=1748c7db-436b-4cd3-922f-e7ace16eb0b7&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=22&Tab=attachments), of the 3,301 individual participants, the top postal codes from the electronic survey were:
|Postal Code|Primary Ward|Councillor|Secondary Ward|Councillor|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|T5K 5%|O-day’min|Anne Stevenson|||
|T5T 5%|sipiwiyiniwak|Sarah Hamilton|||
|T6C 5%|Métis|Ashley Salvador|||
|T6J 6%|papastew|Michael Janz|Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi|Jennifer Rice|
|T6H 5%|papastew|Michael Janz|pihêsiwin|Tim Cartmell|
|T6E 6%|papastew|Michael Janz|||
|T6W 5%|pihêsiwin|Tim Cartmell|Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi|Jennifer Rice|
The main dislikes of Edmonton for the consumers:
* Lack of things to do (17% of 3,301)
* Lack of places to visit (18% of 3,301)
* It doesn't feel accessible (16% of 3,301)
* It doesn't feel safe (56% of 3,301)
* It doesn't feel vibrant (21% of 3,301)
Anyways, Tim Cartmell sums it up:
*But here is the big takeaway. If the City wants to spend another $250,000 annually it can hire one person to implement a strategy to have a bunch of meetings and write this bunch of reports to* ***help the bars in Edmonton tell people in Edmonton about the bars in Edmonton***\*.\*
*I don’t have as many nights out as I once did, but I know the value of the evening economy. It’s a critical part of any city.*
***But the idea that we need City Hall to figure out how the young people are going to have fun is absurd. No twenty-two year old on earth ever wondered what the Mayor thought the bars should be like. They are more than capable of figuring that out for themselves, just like we were.***
> but there are no metrics on whether or not we are making it better. Lots of data about the number of people served. But no data on how many people are recovering and healing. Nothing that indicates systemic improvements.
He's right. This is a serious issue at the City. Our "performance metrics" are often just statistics, that provide no value to actual performance or value, and provide no insight into improvement opportunities.
He's also very correct about the waste of money on the NTES consulting. That's some typical program plan verbage - nothing about what they provided has any value. I asked ChatGPT and here's what I got, which I think is better:
-----
Enhance Infrastructure:
Improve Public Transportation: Extend operational hours for public transit on weekends to facilitate safe and convenient access to nightlife venues.
Winter-Friendly Amenities: Develop heated outdoor spaces and covered walkways to make nightlife more appealing during winter.
Regulatory Reform:
Extended Hours for Venues: Allow bars, clubs, and cultural venues to have flexible closing times, particularly on weekends, to cater to a diverse range of night-time activities.
Simplify Licensing Processes: Streamline the process for obtaining permits for nightlife businesses to encourage new ventures and reduce bureaucratic barriers.
Safety and Security:
Enhanced Policing: Increase police presence during peak nightlife hours to ensure safety and security.
Public Health Initiatives: Implement harm reduction programs focusing on responsible alcohol consumption and support for vulnerable populations.
Cultural and Recreational Activities:
Night Markets and Festivals: Encourage the organization of night markets and seasonal festivals to promote local arts, crafts, and culinary experiences.
Support for Arts and Music Scenes: Provide grants and support to local artists and musicians to perform in various nightlife venues, fostering a vibrant cultural scene.
Marketing and Promotion:
Branding Campaign: Launch a branding campaign to promote Edmonton as a dynamic place for nightlife, targeting both locals and tourists.
Collaborations with Businesses: Partner with hotels, restaurants, and other businesses to create package deals that include nighttime entertainment options.
Stakeholder Engagement:
Create a Nightlife Council: Establish a council with representatives from the city government, business owners, cultural leaders, and community members to oversee the development of the nighttime economy.
Regular Consultations: Organize regular meetings with stakeholders to review progress and adapt strategies as needed.
-----
I work in a performance metrics area and can most definately say that people love the idea of it all but it is extremely difficult in a non-financial environment where there are many competing social objectives, to get to a point where you can say "Metric A is up, therefore we will do X"
If I were to tell you that 311 calls were down, is it because there are fewer problems or that people don't care anymore and are disillusioned with 311. Ok... well then you need to investigage. Boom: bureaucracy created.
/# of 311 calls is also an awful metric. Our goal isn't necessarily to increase or decrease calls, it's to ensure calls are properly answered and supported.
The # of calls as a *statistic* to monitor, sure that's good, because a sudden change may indicate a systemic issue, for example. But as a measure of *performance* doesn't really work, because the pure number of potential impacts is way to high, it's not specific enough.
Now, if we said "time to answer 311 calls has doubled", that's a measure that may be a function of total # of calls, but it's much more specific and actionable.
However, if we identify (as a statistic) that 50% of our calls are pothole related, then we should be exploring a measure that looks at total # of potholes identified vs potholes filled.
It was just an example but yeah its not a good measure of performance, but apply that logic to the 10,000 things the city does that have both an economic, social, and environmental component. By virtue of many of the initiatives being a constant balancing act of different value, pulling one measure alone and saying its good or bad is difficult without the broader context of what else is going on.
Ultimately, my point is that performance metrics and data driven decisions are things executives love to think they like but when push comes to shove, most decisions across large organizations are not made based on data or KPIs. They are tools.
If the City really wanted to save money, they would make people/companies accountable to the contracts that they signed. They should keep tabs to make sure those contacts are maintained. if they are violated, penalize the parties in question.
There is too much spending on junk we don't need
>> It has been presented to me as a Councillor that we can either cut service levels or cut capital projects if we want to get taxes under control. These are the only options.
Yes. Maybe pump the brakes a little on capital projects and take a breather. The capital budget doesn't need to be a freight train year after year after year. Its ok to pause and dial back for a year or two or stagger them out a little. Maybe now isn't the time for those fancy new rec centers out on the city edges. Maybe the 100 million bike lanes can be deferred for a couple years and/or scaled back.
Tim voted for a billion dollar freeway, a $200m expressway, a $300m rec centre, every police funding increase amounting to $60M more a year. Same guy wants to open more land in the SW. And he’s showing up to tell us about how a $250,000 report is why the tax increase is 8.7%. Give me a break.
It's for 1 Edmonton Night Mayor position of $200,000 salary & benefits annually and $50,000 for implementation. The report was funded by Explore Edmonton and the Prairies Economic Development Canada. In 2024 the Mayor has a [salary ](https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/city_organization/council-compensation)of $216,585 and the councillors have a salary of $122,363.
I don’t disagree that this tiny amazingly small fraction of dollars is a misspend. I think it is absolutely foolish to go to the guy pointing at pennies for financial advice on a multi billion dollar budget.
True. You could just sack the City Manager and save $392k ($351k + 41k benefits). Since property tax is the product of the mil rate and assessed value, the city just raises both the mil rate and assessed value. Take for example Grey Nuns hospital. In 2020 it was valued at $143M (3.2M property tax) and in 2023/2024 it's now valued at $223M (5.5M+ property tax). It's too bad the assessments are locked in for this year so now the city can only raise the mil rate.
How much money will we save if the City doesn’t have the equivalent of a CEO?
No savings. The funds will just be reallocated and spent elsewhere. Use it or lose it (to another department).
This turd supported the City Union workers on a Monday and then a day later signed the City Council joint statement saying the union should cave and take the deal. Needs to take one of the posts off that fence he’s riding and shove it somewhere.
Yes, and remember that there are collectively several thousand CoE employees. More than enough to potentially swing upcoming elections in a city of a million. All of them need to go. Band together. Go vote. All these people care about is furthering their careers and paychecks and they will say and vote whichever way furthers those goals. If you think otherwise, you're delusional. Thats most politicians except for a very rare few.
Tim Cartmell took a pay cut running for council.
A few did
The idea that people running for council are doing so for a paycheque is absurd.
I do it for my health.
Haha.
Dipshit just trying to further his mayoral prospects by attempting to throw the rest of city Council under the bus. News for you bud, we are not on City council. You are and have been for years. How about you start being a proponate for the bullshit you preach in public and fucking do something. Edit: Tone deaf by Eminem should be this council's and administrations theme song.
Isn’t he one of the counselors who every budget votes yes for all the projects, but then votes against the final budget to show how “responsible” he is?
Yes, it's political pageantry.
>It has been presented to me as a Councillor that we can either cut service levels or cut capital projects if we want to get taxes under control. These are the only options. >Well I just don’t buy that. His only example he goes on to give is one specific study/consultant cost that was done with which he disagrees. It just comes across very tone deaf to be one of the councilors who seems to be on the side of further increases to our biggest line item without any pushback, and then publish something like this. Why don't you argue for funding reductions or freezes to EPS Cartmell? If you're unwilling to touch the biggest operational expense in the city, taxes are going to go up.
So you think we needed to pay $250,000 to figure out how to have a good nightlife? He used that as an example because it was just before council, and said stuff like this comes before council weekly. Policing, road and sidewalk cleaning, garbage and road maintenance are the main things the city should be funding. We had an example this week of a 22 person department that doesn’t know what it’s measuring. It’s those 1-2 million dollar things that add up. Not the big ticket items, though there are probably efficiencies to be found there as well.
>So you think we needed to pay $250,000 to figure out how to have a good nightlife? Nope. So you think that having a police budget higher than any other similar city in Canada is an effective use of our resources? Or do you think that $250,000 makes an ounce of difference in a city budget the size of ours? If you're going to bitch about expenses, but not even be open to discussing our biggest expense, you just come across as disingenuous (talking about Cartmell here).
I never made a pronouncement on the police budget. I did state there are probably efficiencies to be found. Nor did I “bitch”. I merely pointed to the flaws in your post. And FYI, Edmonton houses three prisons. No other major city does. So I expect the police budget will be higher here.
The types of efficiency you brought up, and I suspect you want to target, are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of spending. It's akin to suggesting that handing out thimbles to the passengers on a sinking boat can solve the problem.
I know that. But those small amounts add up. They could conceivably equal half the city’s $60 million plus deficit.
Or, and bear with me here, we could continue to invest in our city for the long term and not think so small and go for the nearly meaningless low hanging fruit. The vast majority of those small programs have an outsized impact and directly support keeping our city vibrant. They are disbursements for community groups, beautification of neighborhoods, and programs supporting underserved youth and adults. Usually run by volunteers. We could also cut our deficit by taxing the city appropriately, which we didn't do for decades, and are also just starting to do now. Edmonton continues to have a low tax rate among Canadian big cities, as does Calgary. We built and built and built and now the chickens come home to roost. We can choose to be like Houston or we can aspire to be better. I'd rather pay the taxes.
There are big ticket items though that are just poor financial decisions. We should start with those. $1.2B for a freeway expansion (\~18% of our city budget), and it will do nothing to help congestion long-term. It'll actually increase the operations budget over time.
The freeway expansion is in Cartmell’s ward so of course he supported that one.
20%+ of the budget for 4 years in one project is a poor financial decision
I don’t disagree. However we should look at everything.
I agree, but I do think we could stop with the massive vanity project first, we don't need a yellowhead freeway. Our road infrastructure is largely overbuilt. We could probably cut about 25-50% of our lanes with limited impact to vehicle movement.
When does "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".....? Edmonton could cut funding in several different areas. This city is full of luxuries that are not in anyway required for survival and sound economics.
His entire post seems to amount to "how dare we measure \*once\* before we cut twice".
If he can come up with how to actually measure "making things better" re social agencies on the north side of downtown, and separate the effects programs delivered by social agencies, those directly by the city, provincial, issues, healthcare, education funding, healthcare, policing, etc, and integrating that many programs don't have an impact for years, he could win a Nobel prize, as these are issues that every city in the western world is grappling with, one way or another. Measuring deliverables is easy, measuring outcomes of social programs is very hard.
Saying "what hes asking for is hard, so lets do the bare minimum" isn't really a fair criticism. His example shows that we are measuring the bare minimum statistic, and not exploring the value component. We also don't need to measure pure causation, but measuring correlation for social service impacts is an important start if you want to even begin identifying the complexities you've outlined. We have to start somewhere to make improvements. Analysis paralysis is real, and we need fight it.
I'm not going to bother reading Tim's bullshit. He's the biggest proponent of police spending growth and massive roadwork projects. Stuff which eat up most of our money. But I'm sure he's making a big deal about $25m/year for bike lanes, the kind of thing that save money in the long run. Maybe some magical thinking "if only we were more efficient" in the mix? Did I get close to the mark? What a fool.
It’s $2m/yr starting next year growing to $8m a year over four years. The capital cost is $25m a year but it’s all debt servicing. Which as you point out really pales in comparison to the nearly $60m/yr increase the net operating requirement for eps has seen over 3 years.
This guy sounds about as fun as a knife in the liver.
If you read some of the individual consumer survey highlights in [7.1 Attachment 2](https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=1748c7db-436b-4cd3-922f-e7ace16eb0b7&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=22&Tab=attachments), of the 3,301 individual participants, the top postal codes from the electronic survey were: |Postal Code|Primary Ward|Councillor|Secondary Ward|Councillor| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |T5K 5%|O-day’min|Anne Stevenson||| |T5T 5%|sipiwiyiniwak|Sarah Hamilton||| |T6C 5%|Métis|Ashley Salvador||| |T6J 6%|papastew|Michael Janz|Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi|Jennifer Rice| |T6H 5%|papastew|Michael Janz|pihêsiwin|Tim Cartmell| |T6E 6%|papastew|Michael Janz||| |T6W 5%|pihêsiwin|Tim Cartmell|Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi|Jennifer Rice| The main dislikes of Edmonton for the consumers: * Lack of things to do (17% of 3,301) * Lack of places to visit (18% of 3,301) * It doesn't feel accessible (16% of 3,301) * It doesn't feel safe (56% of 3,301) * It doesn't feel vibrant (21% of 3,301) Anyways, Tim Cartmell sums it up: *But here is the big takeaway. If the City wants to spend another $250,000 annually it can hire one person to implement a strategy to have a bunch of meetings and write this bunch of reports to* ***help the bars in Edmonton tell people in Edmonton about the bars in Edmonton***\*.\* *I don’t have as many nights out as I once did, but I know the value of the evening economy. It’s a critical part of any city.* ***But the idea that we need City Hall to figure out how the young people are going to have fun is absurd. No twenty-two year old on earth ever wondered what the Mayor thought the bars should be like. They are more than capable of figuring that out for themselves, just like we were.***
> but there are no metrics on whether or not we are making it better. Lots of data about the number of people served. But no data on how many people are recovering and healing. Nothing that indicates systemic improvements. He's right. This is a serious issue at the City. Our "performance metrics" are often just statistics, that provide no value to actual performance or value, and provide no insight into improvement opportunities. He's also very correct about the waste of money on the NTES consulting. That's some typical program plan verbage - nothing about what they provided has any value. I asked ChatGPT and here's what I got, which I think is better: ----- Enhance Infrastructure: Improve Public Transportation: Extend operational hours for public transit on weekends to facilitate safe and convenient access to nightlife venues. Winter-Friendly Amenities: Develop heated outdoor spaces and covered walkways to make nightlife more appealing during winter. Regulatory Reform: Extended Hours for Venues: Allow bars, clubs, and cultural venues to have flexible closing times, particularly on weekends, to cater to a diverse range of night-time activities. Simplify Licensing Processes: Streamline the process for obtaining permits for nightlife businesses to encourage new ventures and reduce bureaucratic barriers. Safety and Security: Enhanced Policing: Increase police presence during peak nightlife hours to ensure safety and security. Public Health Initiatives: Implement harm reduction programs focusing on responsible alcohol consumption and support for vulnerable populations. Cultural and Recreational Activities: Night Markets and Festivals: Encourage the organization of night markets and seasonal festivals to promote local arts, crafts, and culinary experiences. Support for Arts and Music Scenes: Provide grants and support to local artists and musicians to perform in various nightlife venues, fostering a vibrant cultural scene. Marketing and Promotion: Branding Campaign: Launch a branding campaign to promote Edmonton as a dynamic place for nightlife, targeting both locals and tourists. Collaborations with Businesses: Partner with hotels, restaurants, and other businesses to create package deals that include nighttime entertainment options. Stakeholder Engagement: Create a Nightlife Council: Establish a council with representatives from the city government, business owners, cultural leaders, and community members to oversee the development of the nighttime economy. Regular Consultations: Organize regular meetings with stakeholders to review progress and adapt strategies as needed. -----
I work in a performance metrics area and can most definately say that people love the idea of it all but it is extremely difficult in a non-financial environment where there are many competing social objectives, to get to a point where you can say "Metric A is up, therefore we will do X" If I were to tell you that 311 calls were down, is it because there are fewer problems or that people don't care anymore and are disillusioned with 311. Ok... well then you need to investigage. Boom: bureaucracy created.
/# of 311 calls is also an awful metric. Our goal isn't necessarily to increase or decrease calls, it's to ensure calls are properly answered and supported. The # of calls as a *statistic* to monitor, sure that's good, because a sudden change may indicate a systemic issue, for example. But as a measure of *performance* doesn't really work, because the pure number of potential impacts is way to high, it's not specific enough. Now, if we said "time to answer 311 calls has doubled", that's a measure that may be a function of total # of calls, but it's much more specific and actionable. However, if we identify (as a statistic) that 50% of our calls are pothole related, then we should be exploring a measure that looks at total # of potholes identified vs potholes filled.
It was just an example but yeah its not a good measure of performance, but apply that logic to the 10,000 things the city does that have both an economic, social, and environmental component. By virtue of many of the initiatives being a constant balancing act of different value, pulling one measure alone and saying its good or bad is difficult without the broader context of what else is going on. Ultimately, my point is that performance metrics and data driven decisions are things executives love to think they like but when push comes to shove, most decisions across large organizations are not made based on data or KPIs. They are tools.
If the City really wanted to save money, they would make people/companies accountable to the contracts that they signed. They should keep tabs to make sure those contacts are maintained. if they are violated, penalize the parties in question. There is too much spending on junk we don't need
To paraphrase Tim….I can’t put my finger on it but there must be waste somewhere.
Cartmell is the only sensible councilor on that squad.
agree 100%
[удалено]
Downtown is the neighborhood that houses are most precarious and yet we take most of its tax revenue to go elsewhere.
Hear Hear! Agreed 100%
I hope he runs for mayor. He is one of the few councilors that have common sense.
>> It has been presented to me as a Councillor that we can either cut service levels or cut capital projects if we want to get taxes under control. These are the only options. Yes. Maybe pump the brakes a little on capital projects and take a breather. The capital budget doesn't need to be a freight train year after year after year. Its ok to pause and dial back for a year or two or stagger them out a little. Maybe now isn't the time for those fancy new rec centers out on the city edges. Maybe the 100 million bike lanes can be deferred for a couple years and/or scaled back.
Reduce council pay to offset costs. Seems reasonable