Calgary Minute: Council Compensation, More Spending, and More Debt

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

This Week In Calgary:

• Today there is a Combined Meeting of Council. Council will debate the reports that were received by the Audit Committee last week including the 2019 Annual Investment Report, the City of Calgary 2019 Annual Report, the 2019 External Auditor Year-End Report, and more. A number of land use amendments and other planning matters will also be heard.
  
  
• On Tuesday the Council Compensation Review Committee will meet to receive a verbal update from Administration and have a "discussion with the external consultant". The meeting will be held almost entirely in secret, so I think we all know where this is going.
  
  
• On Wednesday a special meeting of the Priorities and Finance Committee will debate the City's "Established Area Growth and Change Strategy". In February, Council voted to spend an extra $30 million from their reserves but weren't sure what to spend it on, so this report is a list of Administration's ideas such as "Urban Forestry". We have an idea, how about they stop the nonsense, cancel the project, and use the money to reduce taxes. The time for wasteful spending on vanity projects is over, now is the time to focus on essentials.

Last Week In Calgary:

• The City of Calgary extended its ban on public events from June 30, 2020, to August 31, 2020. This extension means that this year's Calgary Stampede, the Calgary Folk Festival are cancelled, while Canada Day celebrations will be "different."
  
  
• It was revealed that the provincial government is considering allowing municipal governments to run deficits temporarily to help cope with the financial implications of the pandemic. How about municipalities get their runaway spending under control first before they start talking about borrowing even more money?
  
  
• Council finally announced they are looking for ways to reduce the 2020 tax increase. Haha, just kidding - that's Edmonton. Calgarian's taxes are still going up by 7.5%. Sorry.

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