City fees just keep on escalating

Re: Calgarians upset about the tax hike; Coun. Farkas is right and Mayor Nenshi is wrong about how constituents feel, Opinion, June 3

Kudos to Licia Corbella for outlining how city council needs to start living in the real world and for confirming Mayor Nenshi’s claim that our taxes have been kept below inflation and population growth since 2014 is false.

I wish the Canadian Taxpayers Federation would have added the cost of delivering services, i.e. water, sewage, waste to their calculation of our property tax increases. After all, isn’t this what most municipalities provide? I used $23 of water last month and yet my charges totalled $134. Even if I didn’t use any water, power, gas, my utility costs would exceed $300 per month due to rate riders and management fees. This is for a house built in 1974 with the same sidewalk, same road, same water and sewage line, same power line.

Council is now deciding on the Green Line LRT project after anyone can see the BRTS are a disaster. Why can’t there be a referendum on the Green Line or, for that matter, on any capital expenditure exceeding $250 million?

Denis Langlois, Calgary