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Municipal Politics

If the province had actually cut income taxes like they promised, that’d help with the increase in property taxes.

Instead those have stayed flat and municipal have been forced to increase.

I really wish our taxes were better balanced across all levels of government.
 
Greenspace said:
We are all somewhat engaged here on the issues however the average person is not and all they see is their taxes going up. Up until now Council has funded everything, they rarely say no to things. That has got to change or we have to be okay with double digit property tax increases.

Yes, we are growing and the province should increase funding accordingly but overall grants have largely not decreased, just not in the way Council wants to be funded. The province has opted for more one-time grants such as we saw in the last budget.

We have to have serious conversations about what we can and can't afford regardless of the province, something that hasn't happened up until now. We are going to have to pay down our debts first over the next decade and be selective about growth projects over maintenance. Also what parts of the city get prioritized.

It's simply not good enough to place the blame solely on the province in my opinion. We've seen oil prices sliding and come next March the province may have a lot less money to work with as well.
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Yes the city can do better.

The province has been aggressive in bringing more people to Alberta as well and Smith even threw out population numbers like 10 million people in the future. Funding right now is not matching growth and you hear that not just from municipalities but school boards, health officials etc.

In terms of oil prices sliding some right now, keep in mind that with Trans Mountain Pipeline oil production is at its highest level ever with no sense it is slowing down. So while profits per barrel may be down, it is being made up with increased volume.
 
From the City of Edmonton:

Get down to business, faster. City of Edmonton’s new streamlined process helps new businesses open sooner

September 18, 2024

Opening a business isn’t easy, but getting a business licence should be. With the City’s newly streamlined process, getting a business licence just got a lot easier and faster.

“When you’re opening a business, time is money, so we’re pleased to introduce more streamlined processes and help owners open their doors faster,” said Travis Pawlyk, Branch Manager, Development Services. “We’re continuously working hard to streamline and simplify our processes for a better customer experience with the City’s permitting and licensing system.”

Business licence applicants can now tie their development and building permits to their applications so Development Services staff can process the licences faster. Connecting these applications avoids delays for business owners while reducing processing time by up to 30 per cent.

This service improvement is the latest effort to streamline processes and reduce red tape at the City. Since 2018, red tape reduction efforts are estimated to save $5.3 million and 67,600 days annually.

The City's Permits and Licensing Initiative was the winner of the 2022 Government of Alberta's Municipal Excellence Awards in the Red Tape Reduction category. Edmonton also ranked at the top of 21 Canadian municipalities in residential permit processing through the 2022 Canadian Home Builders’ Association Municipal Benchmarking Study.
 
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Gronk! said:
edmonton.citynews.ca

Only 1 in 4 Edmontonians think Sohi, city councillors should be re-elected: CityNews poll

A majority of Edmontonians want the mayor and their city councillor replaced, according to a new Maru Public Opinion poll for CityNews. The survey of 400 residents in the Alberta capital concluded just 26 per cent of Edmontonians think Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and their city councillors deserve to be...
edmonton.citynews.ca edmonton.citynews.ca
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400 seems like a small sample size but still, that's higher voter confidence than I would have expected for a major municipality in Alberta.
 
trevorhayden said:
We need a provincial tax strike now until DS rightfully returns the money the UCP stole back to Edmonton.
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It amounts to $13-14m/year. It's something, but the province doesn't pay taxes to any municipality. Our share of government is larger which is the argument Sohi is trying to make. What they do is provide grants in lieu of taxes. So it's not exactly apples to apples like Sohi presents it.

The tax increase last year was $290m. $14m is something but again province doesn't directly pay taxes to any municipality and MSI doesn't exist anymore. They provide grants through the provincial budget process.
 
policyenthusiast said:
400 seems like a small sample size but still, that's higher voter confidence than I would have expected for a major municipality in Alberta.
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The 26% is a bit higher than, but not too far off from previous polls. Given the budget is debated later in the year and tax notices are sent out early in the following year, maybe some of the attention and anger has receded a bit now

But I still don't think those are good numbers and there will be probably be another tough budget for the upcoming year. I wouldn't want to be an incumbent facing the voters in the next election.

For what its worth, there was also polling of Toronto and Vancouver that shows a fair amount dissatisfaction there too, so it is not just an Alberta problem.
 
David A said:
The 26% is a bit higher than, but not too far off from previous polls. Given the budget is debated later in the year and tax notices are sent out early in the following year, maybe some of the attention and anger has receded a bit now

But I still don't think those are good numbers and there will be probably be another tough budget for the upcoming year. I wouldn't want to be an incumbent facing the voters in the next election.

For what its worth, there was also polling of Toronto and Vancouver that shows a fair amount dissatisfaction there too, so it is not just an Alberta problem.
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I imagine controversial decisions would also be political suicide this close to the municipal election, so council might be sticking to safe calls which bolster their reputations.
 
Chow's numbers are also just the result of her being a year into office, so fatigue isn't there yet.

Sim, Sohi and Gondek's numbers are all around the same threshold after (Gondek's is lower but I'd argue it's because of a stronger right wing bent in the city's political culture and decisions that alienated a portion of her more progressive base that voted for her)
 
Delegates' frustrations with the provincial government were echoed in some of the resolutions passed at the convention. A resolution calling for a reversal of the ban on vote counting machines was passed by 85 per cent of delegates.

Smith doubled down on her government's decision when asked about the resolution. She claimed people had problems with tabulators in the last provincial election.

"What we have heard is that people want to go back to counting ballots the old-fashioned way by paper," she said.

Gandam said he hasn't heard about any problems from member municipalities and the public.

"I would be really interested in hearing where that request is coming from because we're not hearing it as elected officials," he said.

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said it will cost municipalities more to hand count ballots and delay the results. He said Smith is banning the machines based on misinformation from American conspiracy theorists.

Edmonton has estimated the extra costs incurred by a tabulator ban at $2.6 million. Nenshi said he talked to people from a mid-sized city who estimated their costs would go up by $300,000. He was blunt about what the province should do.

"If you're going to put costs onto municipalities, pay for it," he said. "Don't expect property tax payers to have increased property taxes to pay for your whims."
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Another cost we don't need, entirely thanks to Danielle Smith's desire to appease her weird conspiracy theorist base.

 
policyenthusiast said:
Maybe Mayor Gandam will run for provincial office to work on undoing some of the changes over the past couple years. Every provincial headline seems to read "GoA passes law, Alberta Municipalities hates it" lately.
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Frustrating that 85% of delegates including 1,000 Alberta mayors and councillors that want to keep electronic vote tabulators because of less expense and better efficiency are ignored by Smith to appease her conspiracy theorists.

Will end up costing millions unnecessarily as municipalities are saying there isn't a problem.

But people also say cutting the grants to Edmonton in lieu of taxes by 50% since 2019 is minor even though it has now totalled $90 million and counting.

Finally, interesting that Sohi says manual vote counting will cost Edmonton $2.6 million while Gondek says initial estimates in Calgary are $1.3 million. What gives?
 
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