Sometimes St. Albert city councillors just don’t get it. Last week they were presented with a golden opportunity to tell residents they were actually concerned about the 12 consecutive years of annual property tax increases.
When Coun. Cam MacKay presented his motion to cap next year’s increase at 1.5 per cent he was met, not surprisingly, with opposition from all but one other member of council, Len Bracko.
The other five members weren’t swayed either by MacKay’s comment, “People need to see value for the price they are paying,” or his pointing out that the demands for services in the city cater to about 10 per cent of residents, yet it’s the other 90 per cent who still have to pay for unwanted or, in many cases, unprovided services.
The five had no interest in listening to arguments in favour of a one-year cap, offering excuses about how it would handicap administration’s ‘creativity’ (short for finding ways to raise the taxes every year) or would, in the words of Wes Brodhead, “squeeze the ball of services.”
Obviously Brodhead doesn’t realize that it’s actually quite acceptable and entirely possible to do less one year than the year before. There is no law or bylaw that says you have to spend more every year.
If the mayor wants to talk about creativity, then he should get staff to be creative in providing the same essential services next year without raising taxes. Believe it or not, it can and has been done.
Where was the debate about perhaps having administration cut some of the frivolous social activities, or telling all the special interest groups that for one year they would not get any increase in funding (heaven forbid we ever suggest reducing their free money).
It’s interesting to note that in 2008 council gave the 150th anniversary committee about $500,000 for the year-long celebration, yet in 2009, when there wasn’t that half-million on the budget, taxes still increased. Is that the creative budgeting the mayor speaks of?
And next year the city will have an extra $147,000 because it won’t have to pay that amount to Sturgeon County as part of the Walmart deal. So there’s often money that is spent one year that isn’t committed the next. Just as there’s new funding requests each year. But guess what, council? There’s nothing wrong with saying no to these non-stop funding requests once in a while.
What last week’s decision says to you, taxpayers, is that councillors don’t care what you think. Your taxes are going up more than the cost of living and will continue to do so because council has neither the will nor, it appears, the ability to do anything except keep spending and spending and spending.
And when the mayor says city “staff should present to us what is the best budget,” well he is just not showing the leadership for which he was elected.
Since he became mayor in 2007 property taxes have increased nearly 10 per cent and that’s not even counting the even higher increase in utility rates. It’s time he and all of council, along with administration, learned how to show financial restraint.
