CALGARY- It’s the $52 million question—what should the city do with tax dollars the province has returned to the municipal government?
Pre-flood, council debated giving it back to taxpayers, spending it on transit or cutting business property taxes—among other options.
But now that the city is facing a multi-billion dollar cleanup, Mayor Naheed Nenshi wants the money to go towards flood relief.
On Friday, he turned to Twitter urging people who agree with him to e-mail their councillor—a move which Counc. Diane Colley-Urquhart wasn’t happy about.
“I know the mayor is popular, this is Obama north” she says. “We are very excited about how he handled the flood, but I don’t want people to get caught up in the wave of infatuation, and say ‘this is how we should spend this money.’”
Colley-Urquhart wants the money to go back to taxpayers, which would work out to an average of $126 per home.
“The options never were to give money back to flood relief, why would we do that? We don’t know what the need is, we don’t know what the dollar numbers are, we don’t know what insurance will pay, we don’t know if the federal and provincial government will step up to the plate.
“It’s really premature.”
However, Nenshi maintains that using the money now for flood relief might actually decrease future tax increases, because using the rainy day fund or borrowing means it has to be paid back in the future.
Council is expected to debate the issue on Monday.
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