Calgary Minute: Staff Salaries, Harmless Pranks, and LRT Project Concerns

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

This Week In Calgary:

• We hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, and are enjoying your Thanksgiving Monday, whether it is a holiday for you or not. City offices are, of course, closed today.
  
  
• There is no full Council meeting this week, but Councillors will be busy at five Committee meetings. The Priorities and Finance Committee is meeting on Tuesday, the Standing Policy Committee on Community and Protective Services on Wednesday, the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and the Calgary Planning Commission on Thursday, and the Nominations Committee on Friday.
  
  
• Potential highlights of the Committee meetings include the Priorities and Finance Committee discussing hiking taxes for 2021 to compensate for reduced property values and the Standing Policy Committee on Community and Protective Services debating resuming the City's Public Art Program.

Last Week In Calgary:

• Council made it clear that they won't be cutting the salaries of City big-wigs anytime soon, voting 3-12 against Councillor Farkas' proposal to cut City management salaries by 15%. To add insult to injury, the plan was called a "political stunt" that was going to "cause brains to explode" by those opposed to the idea.
  
  
• The City received significant backlash after overreacting to some local prankster(s) who placed harmless joke plaques on benches. The City removed the signs, only to agree to re-install them in a different location (at an unknown cost). Maybe this will serve as a lesson to the City to focus on core municipal services, but we won't hold our breath.
  
  
• The Alberta government confirmed their $1.5 billion commitment to the Green Line LRT project despite their provincial review finding significant concerns with the project, including a high probability of cost overruns. Remember, this is the project that has already doubled in cost, despite halving in length.

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