[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

No he doesn't. The mayor has no legal authority to act outside of a council meeting and in council he has no more authority than any other council member. On occasion, council members who overstep their bounds have been removed from office.

To those who don't want any tax increases, that's unreasonable. The city's inflation rate is probably in the range of...um, well it's above the homeowner's inflation rate. Until just recently construction costs were rising at about 1% per month. As long as they're not having to play catch up, I'd say an increase of around 4% is reasonable. Much less and you're having to cut services and programs, unless there is fat in the city's organization. Most municipalities are leaner than you believe.

By letter of the law you're right about the mayor. I was referring only to practice under this mayor.

There is fat in the city. Full on cottage cheese legs fat. I haven't seen the current budget but past examples would be 500k on a departmental website upgrade. A more significant example is $7 million on 'Imagine Calgary'. Sample Recommendations from that beauty little exercise :
By 2016, 90 per cent of Calgarians report that they have opportunities to express their unique gifts and talents.
By 2036, 90 per cent of citizens agree that “Calgary is a city with soul,”
By 2036, 95 per cent of children aged two to five years exhibit high levels of emotional well-being

And lots of spending on non-essential stuff that will always be important to someone, but shouldn't have been our first priority in times of ballooning costs. An example would be 311. I think (I may be wrong) we're up to 11 mil for that now. All to replace 268-City and a phone book. Is it handy? Sure. Is it worth a 5 or 6% tax hike in these times? No way.