CTV News Ottawa

tomden
So, a second fare hike since the strike for OC Transpo. Cutting/changing on route services that already are not to par with any transit service. And let's make it even better by having less paramedics.

I am moving back to Toronto, I run the chance to get shot for no reason but at least the TTC has better service and there will be paramedics to pick up my carcasse when I need it.

MP
Here's a way to cut costs - Stop throwing money out the window on senseless projects and absurd lawsuits!

Leslie
How about laying off some of the useless city staff that are sucking the very life blood out the taxpayers in this city with lousy ideas (ie. green bins, yet another stab at getting the CFL back to Ottawa, poor management of the transit system, screwing people in Glen Cairn and then attempting to buy them off and the list goes on and on and on....

reidjr
Leslie
So let me get this right you would perfer the city just pay $4 million to keep up landsdown then invest and revamp it.The funny thing is you list alot yet leave out the arts sshould funding not be cut for that as well.

Mercedeze
Go Ottawa Go - what a city - increase the bus fare again - change the routes. I am a 12 minute drive to work...with the great and ridiculously expensive bus ride it takes me 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to work that is transfering 3 times and have not had a seat in any of the 3 buses in 2 years........now that is service.........Ha keep on bringing on those raises to the drivers and the Council and all those benefits when they retire or are let go....only in OTTAWA!

Tim
Here's a novel idea.....Lets try running the City of Ottawa like a business....#1....Stop spending if you don't have the money...#2...actually listen to the people of Ottawa.....#3 ...get rid of O'Brien and every councillor in there....It's obviously not their own money they are spending.....
Every year..over budget and dinging us tax payers for more and more money...WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!

Concern
Our Current Mayor Mr.O'brien during election campiagn pledged Zero means Zero so do we have a new meaning of Zero means Tax increase and forced fees every year. This is the worst team of councilors and Mayor, I have ever seen in my 25 years of living in Ottawa.Not only they are incompetent they are pure ignorant. Every year the city comes up with a possible tax hikes of 10 to 12% and then they make us beleive that they are going to work hard to bring it to 4 or 5% is like doing a huge favour to us. It is time to get rid of them of all especially the Mayor who is arrogant and incompetent.

Cate in Ottawa
The very last and minimal cut to any level of government budget should always be Emergency Services. As our need increases with aging baby-boomers and growing populations, so is the increase of all these services. Human Nature itself decrees our accident/neglect behaviours-hence the constant necessity for those who provide aid and assistance.

Somewhere there has got to be a way to ban contracts with high back out penalties, that consistently the taxpayer gets stuck holding the bag for. Transparency is great, but the time for accountability for incompetent allocations of our money has come. The salaries of those who cancel previous contracts, should be penalized also. Future contracts must have modification considerations built in to them to alleviate these irresponsibly high penalties we all keep getting saddled with. Enough is enough-CUT YOUR OWN SALARIES FOR A NOVEL CHANGE!

J
Isn't the Finance Committee aware that the proposed 7.5% hike was recently slashed in half to 3% not long ago and approved? Guess it might be another flip-flop flip-flop by the worst mayor and worst council ever in the history of this city.

J
And one good proposal that would help - freeze suburban development/stop the sprawl and no road widening projects that would promote even further suburban sprawl.

reidjr
So what your saying is sure people in nepean/kanata etc pay taxes but they should get limited services.

bob
Are we seriously supposed to believe that not having a 10% increase in taxes means there has to be cuts? Just don't spend more than you did last year. It's not that complicated. I know there are wage pressures but there's no way they could be 10% per year. Federal wage increases are at 1.5%.

Barry
ITS TIME FOR A TAX REVOLT, PEOPLE

A 4% tax increase plus fees increases would still add up to another double-digit tax increase.

Recession suvovors are demanding 0% of tax increases!

Rather than making unpersuasive excuses for their profligate and unessential overspending, our disingenuous, tax/spendohollic mayor and councilors must comprehend that the continuation of their current socialist’s agenda will bankrupt this city in the very near future. Think of all the spending that is already bankrupting this city; here is a partial list including many projects which should never have been created, and including many which should be placed on a future priority list:

Chris
The next municipal elections can't come soon enough.

Louise Levesque
One area of great concern pertaining to ways to cut taxes is the caseload for employment in the four Long Term Care facilities owned by the City of Ottawa and the financial assistance to help the elderly in those homes. It is absurd that the Council should consider increasing the caseload of workers in the four Long Term Care homes. Doing so means that residents will have to wait longer to be changed when they soil themselves, have to eat their hot meal cold because of an insufficient number of personnel to help feed them and wait longer for help if they fall to the ground or get stuck in their bed railing. On behalf of those who most desperately need our help, don't cut the number of employee and don't increase their workload because it will the residents who will ultimately pay, perhaps even with their life.
As far as financial assistance is concerned, how do you propose to maintain residents dignities if you stop providing financial assistance to pay the rent of people who did NOT have the priviledge of a retirement pension when they worked. It will also mean that residents will not be able to obtain dentures, which in turn will force them to eat puree food or open up the possibility of chocking at every bite. We're talking about people in their eighties to a hundred who worked long hours, without benefits and in what we would now consider horrible work conditions. Let's not condemn them to their remaining months or years in misery.

Stephanie rleans Resident
I am a transit user but have no reservation on OC Transpo reducing the frequency of the routes.

Once again it's all about the scheduling! Just like before the transit strike hit Ottawa. We are not looking at the true issue!!

Was there not just an article on how OC Transpo wants it's driver to arrive 2 mins late because too many buses are on time and there is no room for improvement on targets. WHAT DOES THAT TELL CITY COUNCILLORS??? HELLO??

Complaints the buses are cluttering the downtown core and we need light rail to resolve this? ARE YOU KIDDING ME MR O'BRIEN!!

Concern over emissions!! If you reduced the frequency of the buses(i.e. 95 running in 7 min intervals instead of 3 mins,during rush hours, your eliminating the amount of buses on that specific route by roughly 55%.
I see too many buses deployed and not enough riders on routes.

It's not rocket science Alain Mercier, Larry O'Brien!!! C'mon!!

For your lack of intelligence to those City Councillors..

Another cut, how about city councillors take a 25-30% paycut(Diane Deans) it's the CITY COUNCILLORS WHO ARE FAILING and THROWING OTTAWA TAXPAYERS MONEY AWAY, hence light rail system, the payout to Siemens.

If you Councillors were working for any retail company or business of any kind and were losing money or throwing it away, expecting the stockholders(i.e. TAXPAYERS) to bail out the company, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN GONE A LONG LONG TIME AGO!

We are just starting to recover from the OC Transpo strike and the recession and here comes the City of Ottawa Taxman...SCREWING US OVER AGAIN BEFORE we can get back on our own two feet!

Larry O'Brien, I didn't vote for you, and ZERO MEANS ZERO..MEANS NOTHING TO the residents and businesses of Ottawa!

Merry XMAS!

Eric
I wish I could afford to pack up and move to Toronto...

CONCERNED
How about we sell off Landsdowne to private investors! why are we wasting tax payers money for these high priced ticket items!
what about all the time and money wasted on Landsdowne??

surveys
business propositions
forecasting of developments, anything that costs the taxpayers money in the research. We(taxpayers) have put far too much time and money into this, yet we have very little input!!This whole idea will have cost us probably 3 million in tax payers dollars.
City Council wasting tax payers money on debating something that will not benefit Ottawa residents.

Didn't our grandparents teach us the most important financial rule:

ALWAYS PICKUP THE PENNIES YOU FIND ON THE GROUND BECAUSE THOSE PENNIES WILL EVENTUALLY TURN INTO DOLLARS!

Sorry I recall the GST was a temporary solution to our deficit, yet after all these years, not a cent has gone to that DEBT!

SMILE HST IS ON THE WAY OUT!!
: )

Reener
Just curious, did that list of essential services for the city ever get drafted? Seems simple enough to me, focus on the essentials, say bye-bye to the fluff. But I'm sure every special interest group out there would stall that process forever, and with council full of left-wingnuts, the arts would take priority over things like garbage and snow removal. The next municipal election can't come soon enough.

Gerry in Barrhaven
This is the typical City of Ottawa method of doing a budget. Soften us up with news of a double digit increase, then bring it down to 3 to 5%. They do this to make it look like they are actually doing something there at City Hall, when actually nothing happens there.

A case of same-old same-old.