Councillors Weak On Mock Budgets Consults: THE VOTER

What about the councillors whose mock budget consultations these are supposed to be? They must have agreed with or at least acquiesced to this format. A little backbone would be a wonderful thing.

There’s a huge difference between today’s budget “consultations” and those that happened pre-2010. The current version is not run by the councillor(s) but by the city’s finance department and the folks at Happy Town News.

The older version included a presentation from staff but the remainder of the event was residents discussing the budget with their councillor. It also happened after the draft budget had been tabled so you knew what was actually being proposed.

What’s the point of “consulting” on a budget that doesn’t exist yet? Just one example – the draft that will be tabled on Nov. 13 will include the specifics of the measures the city will be proposing to get OC Transpo out of the $140 million  hole it finds itself in. There might be some use in residents commenting on those measures but there is little point responding to the current information which tells us things like the bus-fare hike will be between 2.5 per cent and 75 per cent.

Part of the presentation back then was a section on how the proposed budget would affect your ward specifically which included a list of capital projects. This was very helpful in deciding whether you as a resident should support the proposed budget or not. You simply don’t get that kind of information now and you have no real opportunity to address the real budget documents when they appear in November.

This is all smoke and mirrors so they can say they consulted people when that’s actually the farthest thing from the truth.

The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.

For You:

Budget: Cullen Posts Frightening Comment

City Budget: Something Has To Give: MULVIHILL

Crunch The Numbers On Tewin, Councillor: THE VOTER

Bookmark The Bulldog, click here