By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, November 28, 2017
You have two weeks left to tell city council what you think of the plans for Ottawa’s 2018 budget, if you see any point in it.
Committees are holding their annual pretend hearings on the most important thing council does each year, before a final council vote due Dec. 13.
Councillors are wearing the handcuffs they snapped on themselves a couple of days after they were sworn in back in 2014. Back then they approved a 268-page report on how council should work for the next four years that included this sentence: “Each standing committee will work within the budgetary funding envelope allocated to the city departments under their mandate and any increases to the budget will be funded by offsetting reductions.”
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-city-councils-hear-no-evil-budget-debates-shut-citizens-out