By Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen, January 8, 2015
City hall is slowly waking from its holiday slumber as councillors and staff
prepare to deal with the first of 2015’s challenges starting next month. That’s
not to say that nothing is happening in the halls of power right now — indeed,
there are at least three important public meetings scheduled for next week and
committee meetings start up again on Tuesday — but larger issues of possible
contention face the entire council come February. The first is, of course, the
draft budget due to be tabled Feb. 4. There aren’t too many surprises expected
as councillors pledged to aim for a two per cent increase in property taxes for
residential property owners. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for new projects
or increased spending — indeed, it’ll likely be challenge enough to find the
money to cover snow removal, which was $13 million over budget in 2014. And
we’ll be on the lookout for increases in recreation fees, which were frozen last
term. via
Chianello: Trio of big issues face city council as February approaches |
Ottawa Citizen.