Election Off To Slow Start

Must be hard to come up with a political platform when your one great claim to fame is taxing and spending. Could that be why mayor wannabe Alex Cullen has taken refuge under the cone of silence -- keeping Ottawa ratepayers in the dark as long as possible about what he plans if elected to the city's top job in October ?
Jim Watson, considered the frontrunner in the so-far yawn of a campaign, held his kick-off event a week ago without much fanfare -- but at least we know he's leaning towards the cautionary and the conservative when it comes to new programs and more spending. Watson -- the uncrowned king of the city's new culture of frugality ?
One good thing about this campaign is that property owners are taking more interest. There are now three credible taxpayer organizations on the scene and this is good news for the beleaguered ratepayer.
The Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group (OTAG) has been around the longest and while the organization got off to a slow start, it has come up with a sensible "litmus test" for incumbents and newbies vying for council seats.
"No new money" is their theme -- not "zero means zero" which is unattainable. "No new money" is now the operating imperative at the federal level, and has been somewhat replicated by the province in its latest budget.
"No new money" means that if there's to be a new initiative, it must be funded out of existing departmental budgets. At the federal level, there's a two-year departmental budget freeze and deputy ministers know that new programs and new hires mean staff cuts and program cuts elsewhere in the department in order to fund the new program and new hires. No more automatic dipping into reserves, running a deficit or hands deeper in taxpayer pockets.
OTAG sees no reason why something similar couldn't be implemented at city hall. The Ottawa Citizen's municipal affairs columnist Randall Denley, who's not been an OTAG fan, supports "no new money" and noted in a recent column that such an initiative was an important tool in a move towards fiscal restraint. OTAG is proposing a two-year departmental budget freeze and uses the recent decision to purchase 226 new buses using borrowed money as an example of how it would work.
If the city gave the New Flyer company 226 old buses and received 226 new buses in exchange, it would be a good deal. However in order to get the 226 new buses, the city must cough up $155 million for a depreciating asset. On the assumption that this purchase meets long-term LRT needs, that the costs are accurate, that the interest on the borrowed money is included in the cost, and "long term" means five years, then in August, when the new buses are expected to arrive, OC Transpo should be reducing its parts and labor budget by 15% and taking other measures to ensure that these buses will pay for themselves within five years. The salient point here is that in the private sector, money would not be borrowed to purchase a depreciating asset unless in the long-term, said asset was going to make more money than it cost to buy it with the borrowed money. If OC Transpo can't find the funds through cost reductions within its own house, then because it's a core service, there is a business case to find the money by postponing some capital projects such as the new central library or, by (heaven forbid !) cutting the budgets in other non-core services at city hall such as communications, HR, corporate services, administration, finance etc. Simple. No rocket science required here ! You can learn more about OTAG by accessing their excellent web site at http://www.ottawataxpayer.com/ .
The Ottawa Voters' Coalition (OVC) how has its very professional-looking website up and running and it can be accessed at http://www.ovc.name/ . This organization is interested in governance, recognizing that the current council set-up does not work. OVC advocates redrafting ward boundaries, reducing the number of ward councillors and re-establishing a Board of Control or executive committee which would see the mayor plus four others elected city-wide. Why does the current council set-up not work ? Too few of the current bunch can see beyond their ward boundaries. No " big picture" vision among this crowd and that's been the curse of amalgamation.
The third ratepayer group which has come to the fore is the Carleton Landowners' Association. It represents rural ratepayers who believe (and rightly so) that they were shafted by amalgamation -- in that they're now paying for city services which they don't receive. These are people who chose to live outside the city's boundaries, who chose to live with septic tanks and wells and do without other amenities in order to have lower property taxes. They were dragged into amalgamation kicking and screaming, they've seen their property taxes increase and they're mad !
These three organizations have come together to host a "Taxpayer Cocktail" this afternoon from 3.00 to 5.00 p.m. in the Hungarian House at 43 Capital Drive in Nepean. They're invited all the candidates in the upcoming municipal election to attend and present their platforms.
Only three incumbents -- Councillors Marianne Wilkinson, Doug Thompson and Rick Chiarelli -- are among the attendees but some 17 hopefuls have signed on. Representatives from OTAG, OVC and the Landowners will talk about their respective organizations, MP Pierre Poilievre will address the federal government's departmental budget freeze, MPP Norm Sterling will discuss reforming the municipal electoral process and MPP Lisa MacLeod will speak about the "Truth In Government" Bill coming before the provincial legislature.
Is the poor showing on the part of incumbents a reflection of what seems to be the view held by more than a few of them that they can't be unseated ? Some of them will learn, come October, that this was not the election year to treat voters with disdain. Arrogance doesn't cut it when taxpayer anger reaches the level it has now reached in Ottawa. A lot of us will be going to the polls determined to vote for anyone but the incumbent !

New posts usually on Sundays. Next post on May 9.

A Fable For Our Time.......

It's the summer of 2011. Ottawans have lived for a year now with a 25 per cent increase in hydro rates which was introduced in the summer of 2010. Interesting things have been happening as the citizenry struggles to make ends meet, having also been burdened with a huge water rate increase, property tax hikes in excess of inflation and a new provincial HST which has added an additional cost to just about everything they purchase, including funerals -- the latter having caused a near-stampede at funeral homes by senior citizens trying to make their "arrangements" prior to the new tax coming into effect.
In an effort to effect economies, lights and electricity-consuming devices have been turned off all over the place.
Canadian Tire can't keep up with the demand for hurricane lanterns, kerosene lamps, lamp oil and candles.
COSTCO outlets are mobbed when gas generators are on sale -- Joe and Jane Lunchpail having learned that it's cheaper to run certain appliances off a gas generator than it is to use hydro.
More people are doing the bulk of their cooking outdoors -- on barbecues, hibachis, turkey fryers and two-burner camp stoves. The smell of propane and charcoal hangs in the air.
The clothesline has made a comeback.
The freezer has become a repository where electricity-sucking X-Boxes, WIIs, PS3's, Game-Boys, computers etc. are stored under lock and key -- only to be brought out on special occasions.
Teenagers no longer hang out at malls. They're needed at home to hang out the laundry which they've washed by hand after they've washed the family's dishes by hand.
In winter, thermostats are turned way down and Stanfield's one-piecers are the latest fashion accessory. People learn to live with sweltering summer temperatures -- movie theatres are packed for every showing because they have air conditioning.
Folks shop for perishable foods and dairy products on a daily basis, having converted from the 15-cubic foot fridge to the bar-sized model which sucks far less juice.
City council no longer frets about cow statues on fromagerie roofs. The problem of unsightly clotheslines in Kanata and Rockcliffe, not to mention the increasing number of rooftop and backyard electricity-generating windmills has their collective knickers in a twist.
Senior citizens are now in demand to give advice and guidance -- especially depression babies who remember what it was like to live with the icebox, the daily shopping, the outdoor clothesline and the hand-cranked radio.............
The premier of Ontario and the mayor of Ottawa congratulate the citizenry for their efforts to conserve electricity. The comes the bad news. Efforts have been so successful that Ottawa Hydro is no longer generating sufficient revenue to meet its operating costs ! Ottawa Hydro must increase its base rate !
Think it can't happen ? Well it just did-- with Ottawa's water/sewer rates. Bad enough that taxpayers are hit with a nine per cent increase in these rates, but now we're going to have to pay a higher base rate because we've taken water conservation to heart and are using less of it in our daily lives.
Citizen Ellie always believed conservation should be rewarded. Silly me ! Apparently this is not the view held by elected officials in the city of Ottawa -- where conserving is deserving of a penalty in the form of an additional hike in water/sewer rates.

Urban Chicken Update

Popular Montreal chef and TV personality Ricardo Lavallee (Ricardo & Friends, 7.00 p.m. Mon.-Fri., The Food Channel) has come out in support of the urban chicken movement.

In the most recent edition of his glossy magazine (Ricardo -- which is found everywhere French-language magazines are sold) he writes of his love for his "poules" (hens), his childhood memories of his sisters feeding the hens his father had introduced to their Quebec backyard and how he hopes to see Montreal and Chambly follow cities such as New York and Vancouver in allowing residents to keep small flocks of hens. Nothing better than stepping out the backdoor into the garden henhouse and gathering some nice fresh eggs for breakfast. If it happened here, in Citizen Ellie's neighborhood we'd have to figure out a way to keep the urban raccoons from getting to the eggs first.

New posts usually on Sundays

Show Some Leadership

Councillor Rick Chiarelli is to be commended for putting together a motion which calls on city council to freeze wages of all union-exempt city employees . Said freeze would affect the 700-plus members of the city's "sunshine club" ( persons earning more than $100,000.00 per year) along with the mayor and councillors.
In calling for such a freeze, Councillor Chiarelli is following up on actions already taken at the federal and provincial levels. Unfortunately his motion does not go far enough in that unlike what's happened at the senior levels of government, it does not speak to the issue of a wage freeze for the city's unionized staff.
Federal and provincial unionized employees now know their existing collective agreements will be honored until expiry date. But in the next round of negotiations there will be zero, zilch, nada on the table for wage/benefit increases. In fact federal employees may also face an employer proposal to change how their pension plans are funded.
Councillor Chiarelli's motion should be ammended to contain the same language -- collective agreements honored until expiry date. No wage/benefit offers in the next round of bargaining.
Even though Councillor Chiarelli's motion is silent in regard to a wage freeze for the city's unionized workforce, Councillor (and mayor wannabe) Alex Cullen (who's never met a special interest group or union he didn't like) jumped right into the fray stating that he didn't see why unionized city employees ("little guys" as he calls them) should have to bear the burden.
His thought was echoed by Ottawa and District Labor Council boss Sean McKenny, who did a bit of mild sabre-rattling of his own. Boss McKenny is remembered for his involvement in the trumped-up influence-peddling charges brought against Mayor Larry O'Brien which resulted in that farce of a trial in which all charges against Mayor Larry were dismissed.
Why should the city's unionized work force be exempt from a wage freeze after their collective agreements expire ? Why should they be so privileged when just about every ratepayer in the city has had to or will have to make sacrifices and adjust their lifestyle as a result of the recession ? Why are they any different from the seniors who are trying to make ends meet on fixed incomes and fear being forced out of their homes by ever-increasing property taxes ? Why are they any different from unemployed former Nortel workers and Nortel pensioners ? Why are they different from the working poor -- the folks who toil in retail and the hospitality industry for minimum wage ? Why are they any different from young families where one or both parents are working two jobs to keep up, while at the same time seeing their property taxes exceed their mortgage payments ? What makes the city';s unionized workers so special ? It's time they too stepped up to the plate.
Freezing the wages of elected officials an union-exempt staff is the first step the council has to take if it is serious about bringing wage costs under control.
It's an absolute MUST if the city, as the employer, looks ahead to arbitration in the next round of bargaining. An employer has to justify its position, and if union-exempt staff continue to enjoy wage/benefit increases and bonuses, it makes it very hard to argue that unionized workers should be treated differently.
Arbitrators have to consider the following criteria when making awards: a) the employer's ability to pay in light of its fiscal situation; b) the extent to which services may have to be reduced in light of an arbitrator's decision, if current funding and taxation levels are not increased; c) a comparison of the terms and conditions of employment and the nature of the work performed between the affected employee and other comparable employees in the public and private sectors; d) the economic situation in Ontario and its municipalities; and e) the employer's ability to attract and retain qualified employees.
It's no secret that arbitrators in Ontario -- who are mostly university professors or retired judges -- have been picking the taxpayers' pockets for the past 20 years with their wage awards in the province's public sector which includes health care, education and municipalities. The employer's ability to pay has been honored more in the breach than in the observance. Arbitrators charged with the duty of settling labor disputes in the municipal sector seem to view the property owner as having deep pockets just crammed with dollars to pay more and more taxes and user fees.
Citizen Ellie is optimistic that this attitude is about to change. In centres such as Windsor and Oshawa, populated as they are with scores of unemployed auto workers, teachers are having a hard time justifying their wage/benefit demands to their neighbors who are trying to exist on the dole. Not a pretty situation and likely to spread elsewhere in the province.
The wage/benefit award to the first union past the post usually sets the percentage increases for the next one up. So it would behoove council, as the employer, to ensure that whoever is arguing the city's position before an arbitrator is well-prepared, can negate all those arguments that Ottawa's employees should have parity with their Toronto counterparts, and doesn't forget that the property taxpayer is the true employer of the city's workers. The propoerty owner is the "ghost" at the bargaining tasble. If the city's legal and human resources staff are not up to the task, then this would be THE occasion where the hiring of an outside, experienced employer-side negotiator (i.e. a consultant) would be justified.
So lets hope the current bunch warming the seats at the council table demonstrate they have the guts to take on the task. This is way more important than LRT, BRT, Lansdowne Live etc. all lumped together. Please -- no more of this "we can't take on the unions" crybaby attitude. Yes, you can. Freeze the wages of union exempt staff. Set an example by freezing your own wages. Get a negotiating team which is ready to fight hard for a better deal with the unions. Show some leadership !

New posts usually on Sundays

Scofflaw (1)

Mayor Larry O'Brien is on the right track with his call to move OC Transpo into an "arm's length" relationship with city council.
Mayor Larry envisions OC Transpo operations overseen by a group of appointed "commissioners" -- something like a hospital board but with a bit more power.
The troubled transit operation was in the news again earlier this week -- the Canadian Human Rights Commission levied yet another fine because some bus drivers are still failing to comply with the Commission's order to call out the stops. While $12,000 is pretty small stuff in the grand scheme of city spending, it's giving taxpayers a hissy fit.
The apologist for the bus drivers, Councillor Alex Cullen who, in addition to chairing the city's transit committee, is one of the mayor wanna-be's, appeared on the local TV news to speak to the penalty issue.
Just a few more months until the new fully automated equipment which will announce the stops (equipment which, incidentally is costing taxpayers a bundle) is installed, he advised. It will be operational in the fall. Besides, it's only a few (about 20 per cent) of the drivers who are not calling out the stops. Some 80 per cent are complying. Nothing to worry about here.
Wonder how the councillor would feel if only 80 per cent of the taxpayers paid their property tax. Wonder how he'd feel if his stipend was reduced by 20 per cent. Bet he wishes his visually-impaired nemesis (the gentleman who should be awarded an Order of Canada for his work on behalf of the differently-abled) would take his white cane and his seeing eye dog and disappear into the woodwork.
This situation should have been resolved long ago. And it would have, if only, if only OC Transpo management and their bosses on city council had brass balls.
It would appear OC Transpo management and their city council bosses believe workers who are union members can't be fired. Not true. It may take a little longer to do it and managers need clear support and direction from their superiors.
"Progressive discipline" is how it's done. First comes the verbal warning, then the written warnings, then the 1-day suspension, then the 3-day suspension and if all that fails to correct the peoblem, the discharge. Arbitrators have recognized the difference between "can't do" and "won't do" and there are plenty of precedents for the discipline and eventual discharge of employees who "won't do." Bus drivers who persist in refusing to call out the stops despite being told by their employer to do it fall into the "won't do" category.
Obviously the will to implement progressive discipline in this instance hasn't been there given the fact this has been going on since 2007, when the Canadian Human Rights Commission ordered stops to be called out on OC Transpo routes. Apparently the view at city hall, is that it's easier to stiff the taxpayers for the cost of an expensive automated stop-calling system than it is to insist the workers do the job for which they are being paid. If, back in 2007, city council had advised OC Transpo management that "won't do" wouldn't be tolerated and heads would roll, the stiuation today would be very different. Bus drivers would be calling out the stops and taxpayers wouldn't be shelling out the dough.
Visually-impaired Ottawans are not the only folk who benefit from having bus operators call out the stops. During the winter months, this city's bus windows are so coated with grime that one needs Superman's X-ray vision to see through the dirt and read the street signs.
The mayoral campaign will be in full swing and we'll have heard from Councillor Cullen ad nauseam just about the time Ottawa's buses are supposed to start rolling equipped with the new automated stop-calling system. By October, it will have taken nearly four years for the city to comply with the Camadian Human Rights Commission directive. This was a transit committee matter. Councillor Cullen heads the transit committee. It's not something to be proud of. Where was the leadership ?
Meanwhile, kudos to the visually-impaired complainant who has persisted despite the odds, and to the Canadian Human Rights Commission for making Ottawa's city council look like a bunch of eunuchs.

Scofflaw (2)

Good news this week that the city now has the power to add unpaid fines to property tax bills. Guess what -- there's $23 million of these fines on the books -- enough to pay for a new arena with four ice surfaces, or part of the LRT system, or the Lansdowne Park restoration.
Bad news. There's another $12 million in outstanding fines which the city has more or less written off -- although the city's deputy-treasurer was quoted as saying that these won't be forgotten.
When the news broke earlier in the week a couple of scofflaws (people who scoff at the law by not paying fines levied against them when they've committed an infraction) appeared on local TVnews compalining about the unfairness of it all now that theyll have to pay up.
In Citizen Ellie's view, the only unfairness is that the rest of us taxpayers, who pay our fines promptly, have been carrying these bozos for years. One could perhaps understand it if the scofflaw was destitute. The ones who allowed themselves to be interviewed appeared to be well-fed and well-dressed owners of cars.

New posts usually on Fridays

New Era Ahead ......As Feds Tighten Belt

"Canadian families and business have accepted the need for restraint. Fairness requires the government too should have to keep costs under control."
Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance

Oh, if only more of our esteemed city councillors had espoused a similar view when the budget decisions were taken last month.
But there's good news on the horizon. The municipal election will be upon us in seven short months and there's every indication there will be a trickle-down effect from the feds' plans to have their employees (who make up a large chunk of this city's labor force) share some of the recession-fighting pain.
Mr. Flaherty's budget couldn't have come at a better time for those of us who want a thorough housecleaning at city hall. It couldn't have come at a worse time for the tax-and-spend chardonnay socialists who dominate council.
Imagine this: Joe Public Servant and his wife Jan (also a public servant) are sitting at their kitchen table looking at the city's interim property tax bill which has just arrived -- payment due on March 18, thank you very much !
Joe and Jan have just learrned that while they will still receive their 1.5 per cent negotiated wage increase this year, they are staring at a two-year wage freeze down the road. Their benefits could also be in for a revamping. Joe and Jan have just learned that their 1.5 per cent wage increase has to come out of their departments' existing budget. There will be no extra monies for wage increases. Wage increases can be covered in only a few ways -- elimination of fat and waste in existing programs, elimination of existing programs or (oh shock !!!) layoffs. Not good news.
Joe and Jan are looking at a property tax increase of 3.77 per cent, and a whole mess of so-called "rate increases" which are, in fact, tax increases which the dunderheads at city hall think they can hide under euphemisms such as "water and sewer charge". Not good news either.
Joe and Jan never thought much about municipal politics in the past. Never bothered to vote in municipal elections. Thanks to regular wage increases, excellent benefit coverage and iron-clad job security, they were able to afford the mortgage on their lovely Glebe home and property tax was just another unpleasantness which had to be faced twice a year. Not any more.
Mr. Flaherty's budget has changed all that. Fearing the worst, Joe and Jan now have to control their costs and suddenly property taxes, sewer and water charges, increased OC Transpo fares and paying for waste removal are front and center. Who are these people who represent us at City Hall ? How come it costs so much to live in this city ?
Joe and Jan are going to start asking these questions now -- starting with their ward councillor. Info, including councillors' e-mail addresses and phone numbers is readily avilable on the city's web site -- www.ottawa.ca. Joe and Jan plan to educate themselves in order to be ready to vote in October.
Joe and Jan also are heeding what economists are saying; next year's federal budget will be even tougher. Those who toil for the feds will be thinking very carefully about the folks they send to city hall for the next four years. There's no place for tax-and-spend social engineers in the reality of the new Ottawa environment. We need real engineers and successful private sector types at city hall who'll go out and really sell Ottawa as a place to do business, attracting good-paying jobs to replace all those which are going to disappear in the federal service, in health care and in education. Something at which the current council has been a dismal failure, just lackadaisically coasting along, thinking the good times would last forever.
We need to elect tough, hard-nosed people who will tell all those organizations which think its their right to tap into the property tax base to get off their duffs, to get out and raise their operating funds in the community or fold up their tents and disappear if they can't make it without a grant or loan from the ratepayers.
Yes, Ottawa was relatively cushioned from the ravages of the recession. But people in other parts of the country who bore the burden have made their feelings known to the Harper government. And while the economy is looking better, happy days are not here again in Ottawa.

Did My Ears Deceive Me ?

Did Citizen Ellie hear it right ? Was that council's queen of social engineering Diane Holmes telling the Great Canadian Theatre Company that they should do a better job of garnering community support when they came to council with their hands out looking for $175,000.00 of taxpayers' money ? Must be an election year, the taxpayers are getting restless and the geriatric councillor is looking for another four years at the trough.

New posts usually on Fridays

IOC Needs Reforming

Don't normally comment on matters other than municipal, but the International Olympic Committee's snit about our hockey gals' gold medal celebration has really got up my nose.

So some champagne was consumed and some cigars were smoked -- on the sacred Olympic ice surface ! Shame ! Shame ! Couldn't have been worse if the audience had still been in their eats -- which they weren't as they were all out on Vancouver streets cavorting in public places with beer cans in hand !

Guess that in the special world populated by Jacques Rogge, Dick Pound and the rest of the geriatric sexist pigs who dominate the IOC, champagne and cigars are reserved for men only.

But what should we expect from a bunch of has-beens and never-weres who don't think women's ski jumping should be an Olympic event and who now have set their sights on getting rid of women's hockey -- for one reason and one reason only -- it's not considered a seemly sport for women in European countries ! Wonder what the Chinese will have to say about that ?

Paying For Punishment

When was the last time a 70-year-old granny stormed an airplane cockpit, took over the controls and crashed it into a tall building ? Or tried to ignite a shoe bomb or an underwear bomb on a plane for that matter ?

Perhaps Citizen Ellie can be forgiven for thinking that the Canadian Air Traffic Safety Agency believes 70-year-old grannies are a danger to the travelling public --

but her recent experience (not to mention that of several of her elderly friends) travelling to the U-S might suggest otherwise.

Departing Ottawa on her recent travels to the Southwest, Citizen Ellie was pulled out of the security line for the infamous (and very invasive) pat down. As she was at the front of the line waiting in the holding area for U-S Customs and Immigration to open shop at 5 a.m., she had the opportunity to watch the screening of other passengers heading south of the border. Many grey-haired ladies, including a couple in wheelchairs, were pulled over for the pat-down.

Later, on her travels, she encountered other senior ladies from Canada who had similar stories to tell about their experiences with security at other Canadian airports. Two of her Calgary friends were heading to Portland, Ore. for an Anglican Church event. One was given the pat-down and the other was given the pat-down plus had her hands scanned for traces of explosives.

In Citizen Ellie's opinion, this is nothing more than political correctness gone mad. In order not to be accused of racial profiling, innocent people are being subjected to all sorts of indignities at airports in the name of security. Apparently we all have to suffer because some useless twit allowed the underwear bomber to get on a flight in Amsterdam with no luggage and no return ticket.

The Israelis have it right. Shortly after the underwear bomber's failed attempt, while airport security was being ramped up in North America, an Israeli security official told CNN that in his country, they knew who the terrorists were and they were not, as he put it, "holocaust survivors" -- in other words, they were not elderly people. And what's more, as they know who to single out for extreme security measures, he said these suspect individuals don't even get into the airport building !

Yesterday Transport Minister John Baird announced new "taxes" to pay for increased airport security in Canada. That, along with the knowledge that all 70-year-old grannies have been put through the pat-down just in case they might be up to no good makes Citizen Ellie really feel comfortable about flying.

A word to the wise: if you want to avoid having the bells and whistles go off when you walk through the scanner, don't wear the underwire bra while travelling. No underwear means more joy during the pat-down !

New posts usually on Fridays

Sustainability Is Important

When the money runs out, bad things happen. Hard decisions have to be taken. This is the lesson city managers and elected officials are learning in many U-S cities today.

Citizen Ellie recently returned from a month-long sojourn in the southwest. Her travels took her to Arizona and California -- states which are virtually bankrupt -- like Florida and others in the sunbelt which based their local economies on construction.

"If we build it, the snowbirds will come" was the mantra. Build they did, and the snowbirds came -- lured not only by the prospect of sunshine during the cold winter months, but by attractive sub-prime mortgages which meant Joe Lunchpail, toiling on the line at General Motors, could not only afford his suburban Detroit home, but a little place in the sun which could become the permanent residence after retirement.

But the bottom fell out of the sub-prime mortgage business. General Motors went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Joe Lunchpail joined the ranks of the unemployed. He could barely keep up the mortgage payments on his suburban Detroit home let alone carry the place in the sun.

That's why cities such as Phoenix, Arizona are in such deep doo- doo. Too many foreclosures. Too few people paying property, sales and the myriad of other taxes which keep the city going.

What's to be done ? Drastic cutbacks, that's what.

The good citizens of Phoenix are contemplating the closure of five senior centres, six libraries, 15 recreation centres and two arts centres. Approximately 1,379 city employees, including police (353 sworn officers and 56 civilians) and firefighters (144 sworn and 31 civilians).

Public safety in Phoenix now finds itself on the chopping block because other city departments have been cut to the bone in previous years in order to close budget deficits. And the city's much-vaunted light rail system will not be spared. It's share of funding could be cut by more than $1 million, cancelling late-night weekend service and increasing wait times during some weekday hours.

Phoenix's 90 executives and middle managers have been leading by example. They've pledged to take five days of unpaid furloughs and forgo cost-of-living increases, bonuses and other extra payments totalling seven (7%) per cent over two years. (Citizen Ellie nearly had a heart attack when she read this gem in the Arizona Republic.)

If all these cuts are approved when the city's budget is set in March, it will help close Phoenix's $242 million deficit, balancing the general fund budget through fiscal year 2011. Unlike Ottawa, there's no talk of municipal tax increases here. Nor are they looking to the senior levels of government for help. The state of Arizona is in serious trouble -- to the extent that over half of the state parks will be closed come June of this year -- this in a state which depends greatly on tourist dollars as its revenue base.

Meanwhile, the same type of budget exercise is going on in the city of San Diego, where police horses are being put out to pasture as their contribution towards balancing the budget.

Could we find outselves in the same situation in Ottawa ? Think about this: Dr. No is now in charge at Treasury Board. Stockwell Day's record of managing Alberta's spending speaks for itself. The public service (Ottawa's major employer) won't be expanding during his watch. In fact, it probably will shrink through attrition as retiring baby boomers aren't be replaced, thus sparing Dr. No from nasty encounters with the PS unions, but his Alberta record also indicates he's not shy on this score either. There won't be new government programs as erasing the deficit takes priority. And there will be more pensioners living on fixed incomes in the city.

Think about this: Dalton "The Deciever" McGuinty's government has saddled Ontario with a record deficit. Cost-cutting will soon become necessary at the provincial level and that doesn't bode well for municipalities which have been counting on the province to "upload" more of the social services it "downloaded" on to the property tax base back in the recession of the early 1990s.

Think about this: Ottawa's high-tech sector is a shadow of its former self. As it declined, there hasn't been any movement towards enticing good-paying jobs to the city to replace those which have been lost. The service industry employs a lot of poeple but these are mostly minimum wage jobs -- not good news for the property tax base.

So where is all this expansion going to come from that our city councillors keep talking about -- to justify their pie-in-the-sky tax-sucking projects ? Thank goodness common sense seemed to prevail (for once) when it came to taking a decision on expanding the city's boundaries.

And is anyone at city hall listening to the Parliamentary Budget Office and its message about the greying of the population and its corresponding efffect on revenues ?

In the meantime, Ottawa ratepayers are paying through the nose -- a 3.9 property tax hike PLUS a 10 per cent increase in water and sewer charges, PLUS a new green bin charge, PLUS a hydro meter charge, PLUS an OC Transpo fare increase PLUS a smart water meter charge PLUS those wonderful market value assessment increases. Taxes under any other name are still taxes.

If we're stupid enough to re-elect this same bunch of tax- and- spenders , then we're in for trouble down the road. Maybe not trouble of the magnitude which has befallen many of the major cities south of the border, but trouble just the same. Our councillors would do well to get on their computers and read some U-S newspapers such as the Arizona Republic, the San Diego Times-Union and the Orlando Sentinel and educate themselves as to what can happen when the money runs out. Better yet, most of them should do us all a favor by announcing they're not seeking re-election in order to spend more time with their families.

New posts usually on Fridays.