A long day at city hall can provide enough baloney for a thousand picnics.
Tuesday was one such day, as councillors finally caved on their absurd single-use items bylaw. They voted it into purgatory, leaving only Mayor Jyoti Gondek and four others in favour.
Note to council: Don’t try to regulate how Calgarians shop and feed their families. They’re already mad enough about high food prices. Add a paper bag bylaw with petty rules and they go nuts.
Bad news came later in the day, when a slim majority — eight votes to seven — killed any chance of reducing this year’s mammoth property tax hike of 7.8 per cent.
That was nicely hidden behind the bag bylaw uproar. The tax issue isn’t as hot emotionally but it’s arguably more important.
The city’s operating budget is about $5 billion annually. Six councillors were asking for spending cuts of $23.1 million.
They wanted that money used to reduce the property tax hike by two points, from 7.8 to 5.8 per cent.
The proposal doesn’t look like a fiscal fiasco for the gigantic city hall complex. But to hear Gondek and her backers, you’d think Calgary was on the verge of collapse.
The mayor claimed that starting this process would technically leave the city without a budget. This would violate the province’s Municipal Government Act.
City officials nodded sagely at her theory.
But it’s nonsense. Coun. Andre Chabot protested “we’ve done it before,” referring to in-budget changes.
Even if there were a technical breach, try to imagine the UCP giving Calgary the Chestermere treatment, especially when the issue is tax relief.
This was a silly, transparent deflection.
For Gondek, the stakes were rising as the vote edged nearer. She’d lost big on bags and her council majority was looking shaky again.
Her allies began claiming that the six councillors favouring a reduction would cut funding for firefighting, public security and other vital services.
“That’s such a scare tactic,” said Coun. Sonya Sharp, who backs tax relief.
“Seriously, we haven’t even mentioned cuts.
“What we’re saying is, go back to the budget that was approved and look at the investments, including capital, and put some things on pause.
“Not one of us mentioned cutting city services, not once.”
Meanwhile, city officials were explaining how amazingly difficult it would be to open the budget, find reductions and cut taxes.
So much work. Far more, it seems, than raising taxes.
At city council, it’s easy to get lost in the thicket of details. But that’s often the whole point.
We’re supposed to forget the goal, which in this case is reducing the largest city tax increase in decades, at a time when almost all costs are rising for Calgarians.
As tensions rose, Sharp made a shrewd move. She asked to eliminate the requirement for a “reconsideration,” which needs 10 votes, not a simple majority of eight.
Now the motion simply called for administration to find “budget adjustments” that would enable the tax relief.
Surprisingly, her change passed by an 8-7 count. But that wasn’t the main vote. When it came, one councillor flipped.
Tax relief formally died, also by eight votes to seven.
Then, Gondek offered a face-saving “motion arising,” telling administration to “seek efficiencies for the 2025 mid-cycle adjustment deliberations.”
Sounds impressive, but there is no mention of tax relief. The mayor’s meaningless motion passed handily.
The whole session was a power struggle between the mayor and her allies, and the councillors who fought her on taxes and the bag bylaw.
On the main tax vote, the challengers won over a councillor, Peter Demong, reducing Gondek’s majority to a single vote.
This mayor came close to losing two major issues on the same day.
But the taxpayers also lost.
If council continues on this path, Calgarians will face combined property tax hikes well over 20 per cent in this mayor’s four-year term.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.
Twitter: @DonBraid
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