The following ran in last week’s Edmonton Examiner as part of our monthly ‘Councillor Connection’ column. It is reproduced here for reference.

Last week Council established 2011 budget guidelines for City Administration to work towards.

As with last year, Council set a target for an overall tax increase of 5% for 2011.

I recognize that very few Edmontonians’ incomes will increase that much in 2011, and that tax increases that exceed inflation are especially difficult for those on fixed incomes.

I wish that municipalities in Alberta had access to other forms of taxation, (such as the sales taxes US cities have, or a dedicated portion of the income tax like Winnipeg gets), which would be far more progressive, and would reduce our over-reliance on property taxes. In this vein, we will be looking at whether there are some user fees that could be increased to support certain services rather than taxes.

I should stress that the main drivers in the proposed increase are infrastructure related.

The guideline includes a 2% charge dedicated specifically to investments in neighbourhood roads, curbs, and sidewalks. This would be the third year of 2% increases in a row for this program, which altogether will increase investment in neighbourhood reconstruction and preventive maintenance by more than $50 million annually.

At this rate we’ll be able to tackle the backlog of work in mature neighbourhoods within 10-20 years instead of 50-100, while also preventing newer neighbourhoods from falling into the same disrepair.

There are also debt service costs associated with the major road and bridge projects we see unfolding around us, as well as the new recreation centres. These payments alone are equivalent to almost a 3% tax increase.

There are other costs under pressure from the growth of the city – i.e. the more we spread out the less efficient our emergency services, waste and transportation systems become. These operating costs are rising faster than the tax revenue we get from new development.

In other words, continued sprawl is pushing costs, and in turn taxes, up.

On the bright side, previous years’ larger increases were  also driven by a combination of increased infrastructure spending and labour market pressure. With the economic slowdown we can anticipate a more moderate cost of labour for the city, and better pricing on infrastructure, which is why we’re eager to push ahead with more LRT.

[This post is back dated to appear in order and correspond to the time. It was posted for reference in July of 2010.]

Council’s budget deliberations in December of 2009 resulted in a 5% tax increase that came into effect for 2010. 2% of that was dedicated toward the fund established to fix sidewalks, curbs and roads our neighbourhoods. 2.1% went toward policing, and 0.9% went to all the rest of the tax-supported operations.

You can download a pdf of the Executive Summary of the Approved 2010 Operating Budget from the city which explains the city’s revenues and breakdown of expenditures.

I think my face is swollen from smiling. Attending the opening of these two new LRT stations today was truly a highlight of my time on council thus far.

The decision to build it was made by the previous council, and I commend former Cllrs Phair, Melnychuk, Nickel and Cavanaugh (and the returning mayor and councillors, of course) for their vision. I can only take a small measure of satisfaction from fighting successfully to have this extension open on time.

ETS officials I spoke with figure that several thousand Edmontonians turned up on the free train service, and I, like many, took a ride the full length of the line. I had and overheard many conversations about how positive this is for our city. Smiling citizens are a great thing to see as a councillor.

It was also nice to see such a heavy turnout of MLAs and MPs — from speaking with some I think they are comprehending that transit is incredibly important to Edmonton and its citizens, who are also their constituents of course.

One would hope that after seeing this level of public enthusiasm, we will finally see the kind of long-term commitments to transit infrastructure that Toronto and Vancouver have enjoyed for years from their provincial and federal representatives.

Finally, I should note that the improvements to bus service in the Southwest and from the West End to feed this LRT expansion are in my view as significant as the LRT line itself. In particular, the transit centre at Leger Park in Terwillegar opens tomorrow which will bring with it better service for most riders in the Southwest. Further improvement will follow in 2010 when the LRT gets to Southgate and Century Park.

We’re getting there.

Councillor Anderson and I submitted a formal Administrative Inquiry this morning on the issues affecting the future of the pool as well as the proper process for dealing with a decision of this nature. We should receive it back to Council’s Community Services Committee in a few weeks.

The text is as follows:

Inquiry: Future of Scona Pool

1. Please provide a written report detailing the business case behind the recommendation to cease operation of Scona Pool. In doing so please confirm:

• How the $80,000 in savings for 2009 closure was determined;
• Attendance trends and comparatives with other Southside pools;
• The gross and net financial projections for 2010 with continued operation;
• Whether the pool owned by EPSB, and if so what are the details of the city’s lease or operating agreement?

2. If the pool is in fact EPSB owned, could the facility be leased and operated independent of the City of Edmonton?

3. Under what financial or operating scenarios might the city’s continued participation be justified?

4. Would the normal process for proposing closure of a city pool involve providing the answers to these kinds of questions in a report to Community Services Committee, and seeking permission to proceed on that basis?

5. If the best course of action is indeed to cease operations, please explain what steps will be taken to accommodate the user groups. Please identify these groups and what consultation has occurred with them and would occur as part of the relocation efforts.

This is the Edmonton Examiner column as I submitted it in September 2008. I am posting it in July of 2010 but backdating it to the time of writing. It is posted for reference.

Members of city council received a technical briefing last week on a proposed way of attacking the city’s decaying local roads,  sidewalks, gutters, curbs and  sewers.   The good news is there is a more feasible and cost effective way to catch up; the bad news is that we’re doing the work in a tight-labour and rising-cost environment.

Our infrastructure specialists have been working with SMA Consulting on how to get the best bang for the buck city wide. The objective of the  proposed  strategy is: “to provide a sustainable long-term program for infrastructure assets (including collector and local roads, sidewalks, curbs, streetlights, multi-use trails, and drainage) that meet acceptable levels of service.”

As standards go, this means a city-wide average condition rating of 3.0 out of 5 or better; the objective also calls for the elimination of D- or F-rated deterioration of assets, which is marked by a state of irreparability and must be completely reconstructed.

In other words, we’ll aim to eliminate those teeth-jarring roads and heaving sidewalks, though not everything will be brand new.

Where those assets are beyond sprucing up on account of being left to deteriorate (there are 80 such neighbourhoods) the strategy calls for accelerating reconstruction of these neighbourhoods.

We’ve been doing two neighbourhoods a year these last few years, but we need to accelerate this to eight per year over the coming decade. This represents an expansion of the existing strategy.

The new aspect of the proposed strategy is preventive and calls for a stricter maintenance regimen for newer infrastructure to lengthen lifespan and protect our investment (e.g. sealing cracks in asphalt). This work is designed to prevent any of the other neighbourhoods from ever descending into D or F  condition.

By committing to doing  all of this work  as a package over the coming decades, we will be in a far better position to attract competitive bids and long term industry commitments for doing the work.

However, even after allocating more than a quarter of the funding from the province’s Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) over the next eight years, we remain  more than two billion short of what’s needed to undertake this work.

This is why we’re left looking at a dedicated annual tax increase earmarked for this work. The proposal is for a 4% increase per year for 10 years, which would get us back on top of the issue sometime in the 2020s.

If cost pressures taper off then we might not need  as much in a given year, but we  will need to begin now or else the situation will get worse –  and  simply more expensive to fix  in the long run as more neighbourhoods would decline into a state requiring total reconstruction.

I would strongly prefer to not raise these funds through property tax increases, but we still do not have access to other revenue streams which would be more equitable. Council continues to push for alternate revenue streams that are fairer and more linked to user impacts, but more work is needed here.