Ottawa Sun
Published: Saturday, February 5, 2005

Little to show for months of work

After half a year, and seemingly endless deliberation, council managed to bring down its tax hike by a meagre .04 of a percent.  

Last fall city staff projected the 2005 city tax increase at 4.5%. Six months later, the engage-the-world-and-consult-ad-nauseam Budget 2005 exercise began; council approved an operating budget with a 4.46% property tax increase on Thursday evening.

After countless town hall meetings, on-line budget workbooks, a public opinion poll and enough newspaper articles and columns written to kill an old-growth forest, the best council could do was shave a miserly one-tenth of one percent off the original staff projection. Hardly a Herculean effort.

In December, I noted that my 2004 city tax bill was $4,032.27. It jumped by $351.55 or 9.55% from 2003 to 2004, putting to rest the city's misleading claim of only passing a 2.9% hike last year. A 4.5% hike on this bill would have amounted to $181.45 in new taxes.

Now, thanks to the vigilant (not) crew at city hall, a 4.46% hike will result in the Robinson household forking over $179.84 more in 2005. So after six months of consulting and posturing, council reduced my overall property tax hit by $1.61 from what I thought it would be in October.

Divide this figure by the 22 bodies around the council table and each of their individual efforts amounts to 7.3c in tax increase savings -- there's an oxymoron for you -- for yours truly.

For the average $250,000 homeowner with a tax bill of $2,410, council's six-months of budget haggling has reduced your increase from $108.45 to $107.49. That works out to 96c less for an oxymoronic tax increase savings of slightly more than 4c per councillor.

And we should pay this group $90,000 each a year starting in 2006 because ...? But I digress.

Many words will be used to describe this whole effort, but leadership should not be among them. Perhaps a new sign should be installed over the entrance to the council chambers. "Warning: Leadership is forbidden. Please check your common sense and respect for taxpayers at the door. These noble concepts will be available for pickup upon your departure." Sorry, French translation was not available as of press time.

Yet the majority of blame cannot be laid at the feet of a council that cannot tame the beast known as city bureaucracy. No dear readers, the blame rests squarely with you and your neighbours.

In 2003, 70% of eligible voters didn't bother to cast a ballot in the municipal elections. Do the math in your own household. If you have two adults and one voting age university student living at home, on average (and at best), only one of you voted.

So what were the other two people doing?

Were you struggling to find fresh water because the city infrastructure was still being rebuilt after decimation in a war? Were you dragging four young children to the polling booth because your spouse was killed in a car bomb explosion last month? Were you fearful of a terrorist attack at the polling station or being showered with bullets if you dared to cast a ballot?

These are just some of the conditions Iraqis had to contend with last week. Despite these hazards, 60% of them -- twice our average municipal election turnout and on par with the 2004 federal election turnout -- literally risked life and limb to exercise their democratic franchise.

In our house, we'll tighten the proverbial belt a bit, cut back on some entertainment expenditures and reallocate from another part of the family budget to pay the city tax bill. For other residents, the choices will be much more stark -- groceries or taxes -- in terms of finding the money for their increased tax bill.

What irony: City council can't keep spending under control or reallocate from existing budget envelopes, but for local taxpayers, reallocation is the only option.

Get ready for the good news spin in the city news release about protecting core services, building on 150 years of history and the real kicker, reflecting community desires and aspirations in the budget document.

It's laughable in the extreme! The city's own comprehensive, statistically valid and regionally balanced poll conducted last October, found only 22% of residents were supportive of a tax hike. But here we are, saddled with a 4.46% tax hike.

The next municipal election (Monday, Nov. 13, 2006) is still 526 days away, but given Ottawa's proven history of watching re-runs of Friends and Seinfeld instead of casting a ballot, please reserve this date in your daytimers, PALMs and Blackberries ... now!

As Plato (427-347 BC) once observed: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." So true.