City council complains... Doer basically aww shadup!

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Verbal-vent-at-city-hall.html
"I don't worry about talk. I worry about action, and that's what the public does," he said. "This kind of hot air on a hot day -- people open up their windows."

And then Jenny says...its our fault because we are not taxing people enough.....
"Winnipeg could do more to encourage the province to increase funding by ending the freeze on property taxes and using the revenue for infrastructure improvements, Fort Rouge Coun. Jenny Gerbasi said."

I'd be okay with a property tax increase if the school taxes were taken off.

You can't keep cutting business taxes and freezing property taxes and expect the Province to step in and cover your costs. Property taxes should have been following inflation not just held so people think the municipal government is balancing the books. They haven't been. Without the gas tax going into infrastructure we never would have been able to keep up with construction projects. Now after another year of deciding they don't need to collect any more money they are going after the province and feds and crying about how we need more money. If infrastucture spending is a problem a great time to address that was in this year's budget, not a couple months later.
IMO city hall has been neglecting to manage finances correctly since Katz took office just so they could say that property taxes haven't been increased and business taxes have been cut without actually doing their jobs and seeing if maybe property taxes should be increased and if we can afford to cut business taxes at the rate we have. These are the people deciding how much the city needs to take in to meet costs so if the numbers don't add up they are the ones responsible, not the province or feds. Also, based on the city's inability to use funds obtained by the federal and provincial governments for the projects they were intended to be used for I don't blame them for working directly with people who will actually get the work done rather than handing it over to the city and seeing it transfered between projects for years without any results. Yeah, point douglas could use some stuff. So why were funds put aside for a waterpark that's probably never going to be built instead of used for projects in point douglas? Stop blaming other levels of government and take some responsibility.

The City should never have to increases taxes. It should control costs and be growing such that the increase in revenue comes from more houses being built.

Whom is going to pay for maintenance of the additions to the Southdale CC? The CC is a city building run by volunteers. They recieve money from the city for maintenance based on APPROVED square footage. So now what, will the city be forced to pony up maintenance dollars for an unapproved project 10 years down the road?

Exactly why the friggen province should NEVER get involved and impose this on the city. They need to hand over money and let the city decide.

BTW the city should get revenue increases through inflation on property taxes. Nothing stays the same forever...

I don't agree on taxes. With inflation the cost of everying goes up, as do wages. Taxes like income tax and sales tax are linked to inflation already because they are a percentage of a changing number. This year I'll make more than last year and pay more tax because it's a percentage of my income. Property taxes are a whole different issue. They are worked out from the total amount of money the city needs to collect from property taxes and spread over the city based on your mill rate. But it's based on a overal collection value, not related to changing income values. It's fine to freeze it when your growth keeps up with inflation and rising costs. But it hasn't. And it likely won't very often. That's the problem. We aren't growing fast enough to realistically say that the rate can't go up either with inflation or close to inflation. Even if we are building that fast the cost to increase infrastructure (roads, sewers, etc) to accomodate that type of growth changes the needs of the city. If inflation is let's say 3%, you can't add 3% more homes and expect costs to only go up by 3% because the cost of everything will go up that much and you have additional costs associated with expanding the city at that rate.
Here's an interesting old article: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/02/20/mb-budget-winnipeg.html
I like where it says the city has $15 M in the budget they can't pay for and are going to go to the province to try and get it. That's a great plan.
Two questions on Southdale. Also, it's the province and the feds, not just the province. First, if the city thought moving $40 million into community centres instead of rapid transit was so important why did Southdale need to work with a different level of government at all? Part of their constitution is that they need to work in accordance with GCWCC and their funding needs to be 'not contrary to the general policy of the City of Winnipeg'. If the city doesn't like this they can stop it if they choose. Second, if it's a city building how does a funding application get through without the city or GCWCC knowing about it? I could see them not knowing that it had been approved but if Southdale's board isn't disclosing to GCWCC that they are going for funding for an unapproved project, that's a communication issue that needs to be worked out between Southdale and GCWCC or GCWCC and the city. Also, if they applied for capital funding and didn't apply for maintenance or operational funding to support it that's a problem with the board not acting responsibly. This was also announced in 2007 so if they couldn't get their act together in figuring out if operating and maintenance expenses are feasible by now what have they been doing all this time? Southdale and GCWCC I mean, not the city.

I agree with JTF take the school tax off and I will pay reasonable increases , if they are spent on improving the city . It is time the city gets out of the funding field the arts and the 100 other groups who cannot pay there way . Let the province pay for it .

I agree Pav. We fund $75,000 picnic tables but cannot repair our broken sewers.

umcrouc0, that's why the city loves condomimiums so much...gotta' love those numbers compared to one commercial unit eh.

Not wishing to change the subject, but I will. In regard to the Southdale CC issue, it is clearly a case of political interference. They are getting it to satisfy Erin Selby's campaign promises. GCWCC is just a useless organization without balls and authority. They claim to be an association of the 60+ cc's in the city and are claim to be a collective voice in dealing with the city. Bull sh1t. They are nothing but a bunch of useless little wanna be's who take city money in order to create the illusion that they are the "volunteers' who are making the decisions about cc issues. It is absolutely unclear who they serve, the membership that they claim, or the political masters who pay their way. Its a convenient way for council to claim that they are allowing volunteers to determine how cc'are run. The Southdale case clearly shows otherwise.

As a volunteer at a cc, I am tired of being a caretaker and bookkeeper and filling out useless reports while highly paid city staff and GCWCC keep heaping on more beaureaucratic crap. I want to organize programs to engage and develop the community. Through our soccer club, we can organize 200+ kids to attend an internationally recognized soccer tournament, but cc's can barely keep up with the maintenance and other crap.

Its time to demolish GCWCC, and revamp the entire cc system. There is no way that we need 60+ cc's in a city this size. The Southdale deal should not be considered a success, but rather an indicator on how fricked up the system is.

END RANT. We now continue with regularly scheduled programming.

JTF wrote:I agree Pav. We fund $75,000 picnic tables but cannot repair our broken sewers.

umcrouc0, that's why the city loves condomimiums so much...gotta' love those numbers compared to one commercial unit eh.

Yeah, they've been making a killing off of condos since they changed the tax rate to match other residential units. I don't know what a commercial space costs per square foot in comparison.