Edmonton gets help with 2012 budget

By Tim Gerwing

EDMONTON – The City of Edmonton has just finished a public consultation process to discover the wants and needs of citizens in the 2012 budget and the 2012-14 capital budget.

Now it is asking for further input, through an online survey available on the city’s website.

Jason Darrah, a communications specialist for the City of Edmonton, said the meetings were the first of their kind in Edmonton. The main goals of the meetings were to gauge public opinion, gather fresh ideas and look for common themes, Darrah said.

“We were getting great suggestions,” he said. “What services are important to people, and ways dollars can be managed better.”

One idea that came up was making library cards more expensive for middle- to upper-class Canadians, but free for people living below the Statistics Canada poverty mark, said Darrah. Another was implementing a parking tax and density tax downtown, he said.

Safety, cleanliness and transportation were recurrent concerns for people at the meetings. Darrah said that even if the price is high, people don’t mind, so long as they’re getting a cost-effective delivery of services.

Darrah moderated the town-hall meeting at the Lessard Community  League in West Edmonton on Sept. 28 for 30 to 40 attendees.

Concerns over cleanliness, ground maintenance, the proposed new arena, the city’s transportation systems and rising utility costs were just a few issues that were brought up there.

“Community safety is a really high-ranking theme,” said Darrah.

The city allocates more dollars to police services than to any other area, and that likely won’t change..

The meetings have a face-to-face quality to them, with about a 1:1 ratio of citizens to city employees, who were there to answer questions. The goal for the city is to be transparent and to capitalize on the citizens’ experiences. Citizens could have their questions answered directly and from the source at the meetings.

For example, Ernie Thorpe, a west Edmonton resident, asked at the Lessard meeting why the city is considering “extravagancies” like a new arena when he’s being burdened with rising utility costs.

Jim Schubert, a waste management supervisor, fielded the question saying citizens’ “not-in-my-backyard” mentality is partly to blame for rising utility costs.

“The city knew our landfill was filling up in the ‘80s and was never able to find a new location,” said Schubert. “In the late ‘80s, city council decided to go diversion. That came at a higher utility cost.”

There have been a lot of trucking costs associated with transporting to the Ryley landfill site, said Darrah.

Darrah said the city also wants to clear up any misconceptions that are out there. ”We’re getting some really powerful discussions.”

Darrah said the city is looking for citizens to break their issues down into three categories: goals, costs and values. The information gained during the meetings will be used in the city’s 2012 budget process.

The public consultation will continue through the city’s website, where citizens who never made it to the meetings are being asked to participate in an online survey. The methodology being used in the web survey is the same one used at the live meetings.