Calgary Minute: Budget Tracker, Arena Deal, and Golden Handshakes

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

This Week In Calgary:

• Today's Council Meeting is a Strategic Council Meeting being held at Ralph Klein Park, rather than at City Hall. This is Council's Annual Planning Session and because of the location it won't be streamed live via video or audio, but given the vast majority of the meeting will likely be confidential, that won't matter too much.
  
  
• On Wednesday, the Standing Policy Committee on Community and Protective Services will be meeting. This meeting is a continuation of the November 13th meeting, where they discussed school zone safety and Cannabis bylaws, among other things.
  
  
• Thursday's planned Gas, Power and Telecommunications Committee meeting is cancelled, though no information has been provided on why, while the Standing Specialized Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs is due to meet on Friday.

Last Week In Calgary:

• Last Friday, we released the 2019 Calgary Budget Tracker a breakdown of how your Councillor and the Mayor voted on the key issues decided on during Council's budget debate. We tracked who voted for and against each and every proposed spending reduction, each spending increase, and each tax hike. You can check out the results here.
  
  
• The City, the Calgary Flames, and the Calgary Stampede signed definitive agreements to build the new arena. The cost to the taxpayer is about $250 million, depending on how you count it. The Saddledome will be demolished sometime between 2024 and 2025.
  
  
• The Minister of Municipal Affairs called out the City of Calgary for its golden handshakes - the practice of giving retiring employees parting gifts outside of their generous pensions. The average per-person cost of this practice is more than $10,000 - 448 staffers received $4.6 million from taxpayers just last year.

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