Category: A fiscally responsible city

The next steps on Blatchford

When we closed the downtown airport in 2009, we made a deal with Edmontonians to do something special with these lands located in the heart of our city. That promise was Blatchford. Today, City Council made a decision to further advance an important part of this development: how best to provide heat and hot water… Read More

Delivering an open and effective local government

A few weeks back, while City Council was in the throes of its discussions over Uber and how best to regulate our vehicle-for-hire industry, a quiet but transformational series of structural changes was unfolding within city administration. The news was overshadowed by our Vehicle-for-Hire decision, so I wanted to highlight the changes – and how… Read More

How to build, and properly finance, more affordable housing

It’s been almost three weeks since the City passed its 3-year operating budget and now that the dust has settled, some people have asked: if affordable housing is such a priority for City Council, why did we leave affordable housing projects unfunded? While the main thrust of these budget deliberations was restraint on spending, a related… Read More

Discipline and restraint: budget 2016-18 wrap

After five days of discussion over sixty-plus amendments, this year’s City Council budget debate could be characterized as a difficult, yet productive journey. When we began these discussions last Friday, there were $58 million in unfunded initiatives and a 4.9% proposed property tax increase before Council. At the same time, we’d heard loud and clear… Read More

A new approach to police budgets

We are now deep into budget discussions for the City’s 2016-2018 Operating Budget and there are still difficult decisions ahead over which initiatives to fund and which ones we can reduce to get closer to a reasonable tax increase. This year – as in the past – police funding draws a significant amount of attention. On… Read More