Worse is what we aren’t willing to do. We aren’t willing to keep taxes in line with inflation.

McLeod,

Jim Watson has staked his mayoral reputation on being a trusty steward, a competent manager of the city, making sure that council and city operations run smoothly. He claims to be fiscally disciplined (as he artfully dodges the question of being a good money manager).

Well, the façade started cracking this past year as councillors pushed for needed improvements in our city, and it finally shattered this summer when we learned that the trusty mayor and council have led us into a $41 million deficit, not to mention a missing $36 million for next year and more projected deficits in 2017 and 2018. It’s time for council to act, and act wisely. It’s easy to look at our looming deficit and declare we have a spending problem. We see sunshine lists and the LRT, and we think the city is wasting the money we’re giving them. It’s a natural reaction; nobody likes paying for things.

But this isn’t an accurate reflection of our financial situation (and not just because projects like the LRT don’t count toward our budget deficit). City council, under the guidance of the mayor, has been pandering to residents throughout Watson’s tenure. We have been promised a functioning city, but city council has refused to generate the necessary tax revenue to provide necessary services and infrastructure.

The mayor can talk about limiting the revenue increase to 1.75%, but costs for current services are increasing at a higher rate. We don’t have the ability to pay for the services we did two years ago. An increase of 2.5% would go a long way to righting the ship, and fixing the problems created by last year’s budget.

It’s not as if the city is spending money willy-nilly. Many of our streets are in desperate shape. They need to be resurfaced or repainted. Our social services are underfunded. We have a desperate need for affordable housing (or monetary assistance for those in need). And the city is not adequately maintaining our park spaces; many parks sit in various states of disrepair.

To make up for the shortfall, the city has come up with some rather short-sighted ideas. We won’t replace vehicles the city supposedly needs. We won’t fully staff city operations, trying to balance the books on the backs of city employees. And we’ll squeeze OC Transpo, hiking fares and killing the customer base we’ll desperately need to make a go of light rail.

Worse is what we aren’t willing to do. We aren’t willing to keep taxes in line with inflation. We aren’t willing to raise parking rates. We’ll put this deficit on the back of bus passengers, but people will still get subsidized parking should they eschew the bus.

And we won’t bring in road tolls. The mayor, in all his assumed power, has declared that such tolls won’t come to local roads in Ottawa. So, again, the city will be subsidizing people who drive and park, while putting the screws to transit users.

And we won’t fight for proper development charges. Last year, the city adjusted the development charges for new homes and commercial buildings. This year they cut a deal with developers, giving them back $7 million already collected and giving tens of millions more to further subsidize the industry in the coming years.

We have, under the mayor’s direction, rejected revenue streams worth millions upon millions of dollars. Revenue streams that not only would help us properly fund our city, but would also eliminate massive subsidies to certain activities and industries. We could pay for our city and build a fairer city at the same time.

But the mayor is being “fiscally disciplined.”

We have, under the mayor’s direction, rejected revenue streams worth millions.