Calgary Minute: AUMA Convention, New Taxes, and Reduced Speed Limits

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

This Week In Calgary:

• This morning there will be a Special Meeting of Council. Council will receive a verbal update from City Staff on the 911 Dispatch dispute they are in with the province.
  
  
• On Wednesday morning there will be a Standing Policy Committee on Transportation and Transit meeting. Committee members will review the RouteAhead Project Prioritization, receive an update on the impact of COVID on mobility trends, and consider reducing speed limits in the City to 40km/h, or even 30km/h (see below)!
  
  
• On Thursday afternoon there will be a Calgary Planning Commission meeting, with the committee reviewing multiple Landuse Amendments and considering Parking Choices for Businesses, amongst other things. There will also be a meeting of the Council Compensation Review Committee on Friday morning.

Last Week In Calgary:

• The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) convention took place last week, with the Provincial Finance Minister, Travis Toews, telling Councillors from across Alberta that "we have to do more with less." New Municipal Affairs Minister, Tracy Allard, also emphasized the need for change, while Premier Kenney discussed the government's plans for an infrastructure stimulus.
  
  
• Also at AUMA, Councillors from across the province voted in favour of a proposal that advocated for "new measures and tools for municipalities to generate revenue" (ie: new taxes). The motion proposed by the City of Lethbridge to introduce a 1% Provincial Sales Tax dedicated to municipal funding was defeated by 68% to 32%.
  
  
• In a classic example of the center stage effect (a well-known bias where, when presented with three options, people are almost twice as likely to pick the middle option), City officials are once again priming Council to get their way. Having previously failed to gain traction on a move to reduce speed limits to 40km/h across the City, administration has a new idea - reducing speed limits to 30km/h. No surprise, a number of Councillors now think 40km/h sounds like an excellent idea, for no reason other than that it's now the moderate middle option!

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