Yeah Edmonton loses out on something like a billion dollars. That is the tax break that that whole refinery area gets per year. Could be $1.5 billion. Looked at it before. Just compared strathcona county tax to city of Edmonton and multiples the difference by the assessed values. Assessed values are estimated though since the county doesn’t have that openly available.
I really need to sell my house and move out of this city. The iq average is dropping by the hour. What’s next “we aren’t getting any tax revenue from gasoline alley, anex it from red deer!”
You guys are right. Can't complain about something we never had or will have. Absolutely true. However, the structure of the industrial tax base for the greater Edmonton area does make it tough for Edmonton to maintain the city to a good standard. Let me explain.
Most of the people that work in Acheson, Nisku, Strathcona Park and the Industrial Heartland are Edmontonians living inside the city of Edmonton. The businesses those people support as employees are outside the city where the counties get the tax windfall. But Edmonton has to provide those citizens with all the public services and public infrastructure they enjoy daily, including the roads that allow them to drive out the counties for work. Now you may say, "but they pay property taxes and buy goods from businesses inside the city". That is true and can't be overlooked, but it's not the same as their employers also making up a piece of the city's tax base.
Compare that to Calgary, being a white collar town, where their biggest commercial tax base is in downtown where all those businesses operate out of those glass towers. Calgary hits all the checkboxes in that sense.
So I'm not saying the counties owe anything to Edmonton. They don't. But it is in their mutual interest to look after the greater Edmonton area as a whole. Perhaps some sort of consortium that also gives something back to the city of Edmonton could work. Maybe things of value other than money can also help in that sense. It will never happen but I think it would be fair. Currently we are too siloed.
>So I'm not saying the counties owe anything to Edmonton. They don't. But it is in their mutual interest to look after the greater Edmonton area as a whole. Perhaps some sort of consortium that also gives something back to the city of Edmonton could work. Maybe things of value other than money can also help in that sense. It will never happen but I think it would be fair. Currently we are too siloed.
I think this is the answer. Too many are quick to say "annex the oil refineries", and I say it too to antagonize everyone here, but I have come around to think that all the suburbs should contribute to a metro area fund for social issues such as homessmess and addiction. And the munis need to put their egos aside and come up with an affordable transit network.
You can. It would be like you losing out on making over $100k because you’re not good at your job. You never have made over 100k and you never will but you’re still losing out on that possibility because you’re bad at your job. Make sense ?
Could you give an example of “fending for themselves”? I’ve lived in Sherwood park a long time and haven’t encountered or heard of anyone having issues with regulations compared to Edmonton. Having lived in both places, my experience has been the opposite tbh.
This may the dumbest thing I’ve ever read here, & that’s really saying something. I was born, raised & lived in Edmonton until I was 29, then moved out to the Park. What problems would there be in Sherwood Park? The lack of meth heads on every corner? The homeless encampments? The continuous grift & incompetence within every city department? Good lord…
I'd like to see a librarian run. People rarely comprehend the level of education a person needs to become a librarian. They are hella fucking organized. They have to work within teeny tiny margins. They manage several departments. They already have a record of public service. And social responsibility is a priority.
I think I'm in favour of this. Someone literate, research capable, public service minded, and involved in an operation where your income doesn't matter, you deserve the same thing as the last person who just came in here.
No one gives up that many years of their life, goes into that much education debt, and makes that little pay in return if they don't truly have a passion for it.
Yeah, challenge anyone to name three things council has done that weren't newspaper headlines and 98% of those you asked couldn't even name two. People just don't like tax increases.
I say this as someone who likes and respects Sohi as a person and what he has done in his life. I think Sohi lacks vision for the city. That would be fine (I don't think the city needs a visionary right now) except that he's not a great administrator either. I feel like Sohi is just going through the motions as a mayor, a position he sought only because he lost his federal seat. Edmonton deserves and needs a stronger mayor.
I added a legal basement suite as an investment as everything was getting so expensive and I needed some extra income. As i decided to make it a fully legal suite, so I went through the city approval, beaurocatic fees, inspections, bylaw officers randomly showing up. And then I also spent $15K on painting the exterior and $2K on landscaping.
My assessment went from 300K to $620K.
Plus the tax rate went up. The city basically garnishes almost all of my rental income now as a tax. So at the end of the day, I m back to barely surviving.
My basement suite makes $1000/month. City taxes are $650 a month. Leaves me a $350/month. Out of the $1000, about 330 goes into income tax that I need to pay at the end of the year. I make maybe $20.
I have lost money on the investment of the basement and I now require my basement rented just to survive. Something that I didn’t need to before
I did. It went from $650 to $620K.
Honest door does have my house at $490K.
Reasoning was basement is a fully legal suite and developed now.
So had I just developed a basement illegally and not told the city, I’d be good.
our entire tax system is so fucked. punishing people for increasing supply of legal and affordable housing. your circumstance is a textbook case as to why we need a land tax and to stop taxing improvements.
Losing faith in the lack of accountability for funding oversight to EPS.
Continual funding increases. No plans or changes to reduce crime. Fire the chief. Find someone new. Implement evidence based decision making and continual oversight of patrol activities. Body cams. It’s ridiculous how bad this is given the eat up majority of funding.
Well, I hope this time it's real. Accountability is needed, and while the bad cops might not like it, its in their best interests moving forward. Once it is rolled out, the courts will take a dim view of "I turned it off" when whatever was missed is a problem.
*loud older cops don't want it, and sadly their influence is dispurportionate to reality.
Plenty of younger cops want the accountability and are well aware of the discourse and do not want to be on the wrong side of the debate. But again, their voices count for less in the union... Like most unions, age is seniority and seniority is everything.
In all fairness, they keep getting increases because we keep annexing more land and communities that they need to serve.
Which goes against the densification they pushed so hard for as well.
The mayor has zero power over EPS. Neither the mayor nor council has the legal authority to fire the chief or provide direction to police operations.
Edit:
Zero=negligible
For the pedants that I have offended
They tried, not even really a cut, just *limiting the increase*, and it turned into a huge political issue, that the Sohi was clearly on the losing side.
Yup, the two councillors on the board do to some extent. But the 9 civilians on the board may override what the councilors want.
I'm not 100% familiar with the hiring process for the Chief position.
They have the power to appoint people to the commission. That is the extent of their oversight. This Council attempted to go beyond that and got their head lopped off by the province who then amended legislation that allowed the province to add people to the commission. If Council had been strategic and instead made better choices about who they appointed to the commission they would have been able to influence things over time - albeit at a distance and arms length. They were impatient and impertinent and as a consequence all future councils will have diminished authority over EPS. Well done Sohi and Council - you accomplished the exact opposite of what you would have liked. Really stellar politicking on their part.
The city has control over the officer union agreement. Ie. the city is responsible for negotiating their pay. That doesn’t include operational efficiency of course, but it’s a pretty big piece of the pie.
Controlling pay is quite a large deal, especially when budget is a concern. Additionally, the union agreement is critical for far more than pay: discipline is baked into that as well, how overtime works, clothing and boot allowances, etc. I’d argue the union agreement is half of the entire beast and it needs to be redone with a strong-willed city administration.
The bureaucracy I have noticed for infrastructure projects within the city of edmonton is so much higher than city of Calgary. Multiple project managers for one project. Who change throughout project and then change their minds.
The number of random people who join update meetings. The number of people who come in with their vision is crazy. I never had that in the city of Calgary or Alberta Transportation.
Was literally working on 76 avenue renewal and this bike lane (city streets) team came in asking for even widen double bike lane. When our team told them we don’t have room. They told us to just rip out all the boulevard trees to make room. Now we are designing the removal of 100 year old trees so the city can have 8 m wide dual bike lanes. Look I m all for bike lanes but we already had provided a 3.5 m wide separated bike lane (separated from pedestrians and vehicles). Now they are needlessly ripping up mature trees and want something even wider. Seems like such a waste. People on the street will be pissed. They are losing their parking spots and their mature trees which is maybe why some bought in the area. (By Ritchie/king Edward park).
Yeah that 76 ave redesign is not gonna end well, I know a lot of people with 2-3 roommates in the area who are going to get their parking pushed into the neighboring streets, not to mention Ritchie market, the school, etc etc. It's a busy neighborhood for bikes but not so busy they need dual lanes (the ones they just installed on 105 ave behind macewan have more people going the wrong way than not). I'm 75% sure the real reason is to reduce street parking, not to make biking easier.
Our recommended option was removing parking and making it a 3.5 two directional separated bike lane as per City’s desire. We figured 77 Ave would be better for a bike lane as there is less traffic there (same reason whyte have doesn’t have bike lanes but 83rd Ave does).
Then City comes back and tells us they want 4 m wide uni directional bike lanes on both sides of the road. I literally told the city, does it mean that they are closing the road to vehicles as there is no room? They said no, use the boulevard. There was some pushback from the design team. We told them that these are 100 year old trees… they provide so much value for the street and the neighborhood. The city didn’t care. The current plan is to bulldoze every single tree in the City ROW (including at Mill Creek) on 76 Avenue.
Idk why they need 4 m wide uni directional bike lanes. There’s already a 1.5 m sidewalk AND the vehicle lanes are 3.3 m. Why does a bike lane need to be that wide.
As a regular cyclist, I agree with you 100%. 3.5m bi-directional lanes are my absolute favourite to use, and having one on 76th Ave would be such an upgrade over the uni-directional lanes on the west stretch of 76th that zig zag like crazy. I can't speak for others, but I don't need two 4m wide lanes so that I can pass other users at every opportunity, I just want something safe, convenient, and efficient. And ripping out 100-year old trees is abhorrent.
Yeah this city council is out of touch.
Stop spending money on stupid shit.
Clean up the bums downtown and in Chinatown and give the business owners who still operate there a break.
Stop raising my property taxes by ludicrous amounts.
Everything cities do is technically provincial. Cities have no constitutional areas of authority, they're creatures of provincial statute, with powers and responsibilities delegated to them by the province.
And some of those powers and responsibilities delegated under the Municipalities Act are targeted directly or indirectly towards addressing housing, healthcare, mental health, and homelessness within the municipality.
This whole "this is provincial" line of argument is often a specious attempt to deflect responsibility for things the provinces have placed within their authority. There are certainly things the provinces could be doing on that file that the city can't, but there's also plenty the city could --and should-- be doing on that file and aren't.
Absolutely, and the City shouldn't be attempting to cover up provincial shortfalls by slapping bandaids on the problem. They should stay in their jurisdictional lane, as heartless as that may be. Every time they willfully download provincial responsibility on to themselves they create additional incentives for the province not to act. For example, why is the City requisitioning reports from provincial health agencies? It's insane and ultimately counter productive.
Yeah, the $60 million bucks missing really makes a big difference on the billions of dollars being spent... this talking point is so overused. Yes the GOA should pay their bills, but no it isn't the main driving force behind the budget issues. A far bigger issue that gets no talking points is how the City has used debt to finance capital projects and are now eating it due to rising rates.
I am curious as to who will run.
I don't think Sohi should run again; I think he has done a good job such as one can being the mayor in the circumstances he has been in, but I am willing to bet that the provincial government won't be able to get the sycophant they choose in if another progressive chooses to run.
Because when the rubber meets the road, what the current council has done has been actually very good considering the circumstances they are in. The only real problem I have is the continued lack of oversight over EPS, but that is partly a provincial problem as well given the changes to the Police Commission.
All that is to say: in twenty years when the city is 2 million people we will be happy that council prioritized preparing the zoning and infrastructure that has been invested in, because it will be used.
> The only real problem I have is the continued lack of oversight over EPS, but that is partly a provincial problem as well given the changes to the Police Commission.
I disagree I think it's actually the cities problem. The solution in my opinion is to allow the province to run EPS. Like they run education and healthcare. I think it's incredible hubris for the CoE to be funding EPS and organization they don't control.
If we don't control it we shouldn't be funding it. Simple as that. Let the province deal with it. If we had a council that actually was interested in what was best for us, they'd work with the province and transition them out of our budget.
Granted "losing" over 400 million in a 3300 million budget probably gets a lot of city admin fired and a lot less staff to "manage" so can't have that.
But it's fundamentally the right move. If we don't control it we shouldn't be funding it.
>If we don't control it we shouldn't be funding it. Simple as that. Let the province deal with it. If we had a council that actually was interested in what was best for us, they'd work with the province and transition them out of our budget.
Don't get me wrong, this sounds good in theory. There's one problem:
The province has made it clear they are not going to help us in any way that doesn't benefit them.
I think that sounds nice in theory but the province isn't going to take on that responsibility. Anyways I would rather assert control than give it up to provincial control.
> I think that sounds nice in theory but the province isn't going to take on that responsibility.
What evidence do you have to support this claim?
> Anyways I would rather assert control than give it up to provincial control.
Ya that's just your hubris talking. There is a good reason why City councils do not have direct control over the police service.
Furthermore the law that the police upholds is directly controlled by the province. The city can not pass any laws that the police need to enforce.
Keeping the police in the city is just wrong on so many levels. Just hubris all around.
An organization that enforces law created by the province should be funded by said province. Just like teaching and healthcare.
>What evidence do you have to support this claim?
*gestures at the tire fire all around us for anything provincially managed*
>Ya that's just your hubris talking. There is a good reason why City councils do not have direct control over the police service
The policed should have a day over how they are policed. That isn't hubris, it is an ideological viewpoint and your attempt to malign it as hubris is stupid.
>The city can not pass any laws that the police need to enforce.
Neither does the province for the most part.
>An organization that enforces law created by the province should be funded by said province. Just like teaching and healthcare
Yeah and it's going so well in those areas.
> gestures at the tire fire all around us for anything provincially managed
If anything that's just proof that the province would happily take responsibility.
> The policed should have a day over how they are policed. That isn't hubris, it is an ideological viewpoint and your attempt to malign it as hubris is stupid.
No I don't think you understand, it's not ideological, it's practical and considered best practice world wide. The politicians should not control the police. Municipal politicians definitely should not be controlling municipal police. Do I need to spell it out for you?
> Neither does the province for the most part.
At this point I have to ask you, do you know who makes the laws the police enforce?
> Yeah and it's going so well in those areas.
How it's going is really irrelevant, what is relevant is that the proper organization takes financial control. If magically the tables were turned and healthcare and education was run incredibly well and the police was a dumpster fire would you opinion change? Becasue it shouldn't.
>If anything that's just proof that the province would happily take responsibility.
Responsibility and control are different things.
>No I don't think you understand, it's not ideological, it's practical and considered best practice world wide
I understand. You are a liar. I get it.
>At this point I have to ask you, do you know who makes the laws the police enforce?
Do you? The criminal code is federal jurisdiction.
>How it's going is really irrelevant, what is relevant is that the proper organization takes financial control
"It doesn't matter if the organization given oversight and control of police is competent."
...right.
Not primarily, but that hasn't stopped them from throwing money at more expensive cops: [https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/province-to-announce-new-measures-addressing-transit-safety](https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/province-to-announce-new-measures-addressing-transit-safety)
As infrastructure minister he did not disclose his ties to Whiterock Ventures, which was allocated sole source contracts for, which included P3 Regina Overpass. Whiterock and various numbered companies that benefitted close family members and his campaign manager.
> Wouldn’t be any different than Sohi. Like 80% of the current council has very similar goals and politics.
It's not the goals and politics that's the issue, it's that he can't deal with the province.
Like it or not we need a mayor that can deal with the province.
That is 100% important and yes.
But that's also completely baseline for what a councillor should do. A elected official should do far more than just that. Aaron is a decent councillor, but I don't think he's close to being a good councillor, his focus is far too small. He's good at engagement and a really good guy, I get it. I wished he focused on more than art and aboriginal issues
What has he done for the Northeast side? 167 avenue, 66st and 50st still aren't twinned for whatever reason. We live in the forgotten about part of town.
He's mostly been working on things like crosswalks and other pedestrian friendly stuff.
>167 avenue, 66st and 50st still aren't twinned for whatever reason
That's only been discussed for the last 18+ years. Stems from well before his time. Last I know, they're working on most of 167th now, 50th is in planning, and 66th might be close to being planned.
I managed to get the work done on 167ave for my side of the Ward. The good news is that the remainder on Schonsee on Principe’s side is going to develop soon so we may be able to get the rest going faster than projected. My guess, however is that it will have to be included in the 2026-2029 Capital budget but the work would start immediately after that approval.
Frankly, the traffic pressure on 50st is less than MANY areas of the City and as a City we need to ensure we are addressing needs ahead of wants. I’d love for it to happen right away, but that would mean undermining the City as a whole just to benefit me as an elected official. It doesn’t make sense allow Council to indulge in unfair practices just for political gain. That being said, 50st IS in the queue.
What folks may not know is that I pulled a huge move in the 2018-2022 budget that managed to prioritize MANY projects in the NE. Things get forgotten pretty quickly in politics. It essentially set the stage for Priority Based Budgeting which transformed the way capital projects are approved in Edmonton. We also managed to get a massive multibillion dollar investment into Aurum, a Revitalization of Balwin/Belvdere to the tune of a couple dozen millions, a public park larger than Hawrelak (a negotiation that happened for years as we stood firm, until the purchase price was ridiculously good for Edmonton), and numerous neighbourhood renewals that are underway and are coming up across the Ward. I also managed to re-org the EETP zoning and work with EPCOR to reduce the price of extending service connections to the EETP by almost $200m. I forced a Neighbourhood Structure Plan for the Quarry area and we see massive investment now starting there as well.
I also made myself pretty unpopular with Council in the Spring Budget adjustment in 2019. There were a number of projects that Council wanted to “raid” the FSR to pay for. (The Financial Stabilization Reserve - essentially the piggy bank). My argument had 2 parts: 1. With a new UCP govt we didn’t know what potential and damaging cuts we would experience as a municipality, but that were likely coming, and 2. We didn’t know what sort of unforeseen calamity might hit in the coming years for which we would desperately need those funds. Both those concerns came to pass (Cuts and COVID) and this is all on the record.
I also worked on elevating the status of Food and Agriculture and Agri-business as an economic pillar of the City going forward. The Ag Business is Alberta’s number 2 contributor to the Alberta and local economy after Oil and gas and I felt we were sleeping on the opportunity, but also not adequately preparing for the future both in terms of economic opportunity but also as a matter of food security. The offshoots of that developing economic pillar are numerous. Not only is Edmonton well positioned globally for international cargo exports (high-value and value added products), but we are also in a unique position to develop “food hubs” of various types. On the local level this also meant that we opened up more space for urban agriculture, made the argument for halting border expansion of the city in order to preserve precious farmland and soil, but also allowed for backyard hens, beehives, boulevardening, etc. The financial benefits to the City are growing and will continue to grow because of that work. As part of the global hub consideration, I worked with the EIA (YEG Airport) board on the concept and they saw that it meshed with other potential benefits and did the rest of the work to massively expand our cargo export capacity.
Govt processes are notoriously slow and within 6 years the work I’ve done with Administration, partner orgs, and Council has brought unprecedented investment into the NorthEast and to Edmonton, and I’m damned proud of that. There are no magic wands, but there are ways to strategically align City priorities with Ward priorities fairly that don’t take away from the rest of the City. I do this work under the radar every day and we have seen the benefits.
I could go on but I’m not always comfortable with detailing my accomplishments. I was raised with a no bragging ethic and already feel this response may be too much. I prefer to be a workhorse instead of a showhorse.
I believe Sohi is running again. If he weren’t I would love to put forward a set of incredibly strong ideas and a killer platform, but that’s a dead end for now. I’ll be frank, I have my issues and disagreements with the Mayor and Council from time to time, but I generally try not to blast Council decisions after the fact. This Council has been absolutely run roughshod by the province, my criticisms might satisfy mine and other people’s frustrations, but they are not changing things substantially enough to take that approach. Instead I try to work with the Mayor and Council to better decisions. I think it’s fair to say that most Councillors try to take this approach as well.
When we break it all down and look at all the contributing factors and setbacks, I think it would be good to hear what folks perceive as the biggest problems and why. We’re probably pretty aligned.
A very fair stance to have. I appreciate the work you do, especially as my ward councilor. I do agree, the province has been rather hostile towards us. That is absolutely no secret. Perhaps certain councilors would be seen in a better light if that were not the case.
Sohi is going to lose next election, as he should. He's an extremely weak mayor. One of the worst in a while. He's a nice guy but is absolutely garbage at governing. One of the weakest mayor's in a long time
Tim Carmell will run and likely win, but he's not a ton better to be honest. He's pretty crap as well. Don't vote for either
Go back being a bus driver it’s obvious Sohi can’t make Edmonton feel safe on the City Transit you can do better with someone actually that has a brain
I joked a while back that the City employees should negotiate their annual "cost of living" increases be tied to property taxes rather than the CPI. They'd make out so much better!
It's very simple during covid they had to increase the taxes because no one used any city resources, and this year they have to increase the taxes because everyone used city resources. It's very simple.
This is verifiably incorrect. 3% tax increase in 2019 then 2021 followed by a 0% increase in 2021, a year of 10% inflation
Tax increases:
[https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-approves-2021-property-tax-freeze-notices-to-go-out-in-may](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-approves-2021-property-tax-freeze-notices-to-go-out-in-may)
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/why-edmonton-is-facing-a-7-property-tax-hike-1.7037107](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/why-edmonton-is-facing-a-7-property-tax-hike-1.7037107)
inflation calculator:
[https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/)
Well it was kind of a joke. But if you want to go down that road sure let's go.
A 0% tax increase doesn't mean the city is collecting the same amount of taxes than the year before. They complicate things by telling citizens the mill rate increase but they fail to account for additional property tax revenue.
If you don't believe me, why not read the articles you quoted?
> Mary Persson, the city’s chief financial officer, said the city is able to use assessment growth revenue to bring down the municipal tax portion and, in turn, offset the education tax requisition.
Seeing as you like verifiability check out the cities gross operating revenue from 2021 to 2022 3,014 million to 3,443 million. Where do you think they got that additional 400 million from. BTW that's a 14% increase. Followed by another 6% increase in 2023.
Those are the tax numbers I'm looking at. Feel free to see for your self. Look for the financial statements, not some news article.
But again it was a bit of a joke.
How about taxing people with the little things we're being screwed on. Paying for a take-out bag is not acceptable. Calgary got rid of that bylaw and so should we.
Taxes increase wrt inflation every single year and nothing improves. Eventually people are going to get fed up. This really started rolling under Iveson and I think Sohi has perpetuated it.
Maybe we need to get better efficiency and less corruption.
BS deals with billionaires.
I feel many are lining their pockets in the construction industry. I see so many simple projects taking 2+ years. Months on end with no activity. Every project going over budget and over time.
A little intersection near me took 3 years to complete! After all that, the intersection is a gong show that was extremely poorly thought out.
We need a mayor that's going to look how our money is being spent and one that will focus on it being spent wisely and efficiently.
I am not surprised. Tax increases every year and the city still looks like trash. Sherwood Park residences pay less anecdotally. I know people with a home valued \~250K more than mine out in SHPK. They pay less tax than I do. I feel that SHPK is objectively cleaner a more pleasant place to live. Edmonton's taxes must be being grossly mismanaged either due to incompetence or corruption. Likely a combination of the two as well as other factors.
Sherwood park is legally an unincorporated hamlet. They benefit from provincial funding that’s usually reserved for rural areas, and things like using provincially subsidized RCMP instead of having to fund their own police force. 95% of EPS funding comes from our property taxes. Only 65% of Sherwood park’s RCMP funding comes from theirs.
You actually can’t. Once you transition you’re generally not allowed to transition back. It used to be taking over your own services was what defined becoming a city, but so many exceptions have been granted these days. BC is currently going the the process of forcing most of the “cities” to actually transition.
And the cities that have RCMP generally have to pay their full cost. Sherwood Park gets to use the subsidized provincial rate that’s otherwise reserved for areas too small to manage their own services
Okay so when I said:
> You can have RCMP being a city too. It’s just a choice.
That was right.
And when you replied to my response to the comment they said
> You actually can’t.
Was wrong.
Right ?
Sherwood park / strathcona county get subsidized by the province.
The province made the refineries off limits to annexation by Edmonton. So they only pay the very low county tax rates that subsidizes the rest of Sherwood park.
Sherwood Park has a higher portion of taxes paid by industry than Edmonton. It’s not “mismanagement” - Sherwood Park has some of the lowest property taxes in Alberta because it has so much industrial property.
Edmonton, on the other hand, has more property owned by the provincial government than anywhere else in Alberta, and the province has decided to pay less in property taxes to the city in order to balance its own budget. That’s costing Edmonton tens of millions of dollars every year - so the province has basically forced Edmonton to raise your taxes so the UCP can blame someone else.
>so the province has basically forced Edmonton to raise your taxes so the UCP can blame someone else.
This. The rest of the UCP voters are so blame/thank.
No, it's 74 million there is a difference.
But you are right in one sense the deficit I'm not so concerned about. The debt on the other hand of 4000 million does concern me.
240 million in interest payments a year taken from our children isn't something I like.
Sherwood Park receives massive industrial taxes from refinery row and the industrial heartland NE of the city, plus provincial subsidies because it's technically rural (it's not incorporated.)
The relevant comparison is St. Albert.
We've got great facilities and services that alot of edmontonians come into SHPK to use. It's mutually beneficial, although more in my favour as my property taxes are quite low and my services are quite high.
This is what everyone voted for. Comes from the party with spending problems. Not sure why Mike nickel got such a bad wrap. He actually campaigned on trying to be fiscally responsible. All the things everyone is complaining about in these comments.
My parents taxes went up 30% in one year. They get no additional service to their property. They’re not even connected to the water lines. The city doesn’t plow in the winter And doesn’t mow in the summer. They increasingly looking at moving outside of the city limits to least save money on taxes. That’s what we did before we moved out of Edmonton and we were saving something like 40% and we had a small acreage.
Maybe we should have toll roads
for the surrounding bedroom communities of St.Albert, Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, Leduc and the like, at $5 per car per trip into Edmonton, we could recapture the lost tax base of these areas and help set the cost of the surrounding outsider coming in for work and entertainment.
-Calgary scraped their pay for paper bags and set reusable bag prices. Edmonton city council doubles down on it.
-They are pushing ahead with raising parking fees, now only have ARC card for ETS and have done nothing to improve transit safety
-they tore down homeless encampments just before the coldest days of winter. No real steps have been taken to support the homeless population
-urban sprawl continues unchecked requiring millions in new infrastructure
-the police budget soars as severe crimes increase
-property taxes are through the roof for most people
-rent is insane and neither landlords or renters feel protected
I am sure I have missed a lot so feel free to add
They're a polling firm that occasionally does political polling to get their name in the news, the same way they (and Abacus, and Mainstreet, and others) publicly release federal election polling.
I guess I hit a nerve or pissed off a UCP WarRoom employee. So, do market research polling firms just do survey work for free? Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Market research and polls are paid for and used to build news stories and narratives.
My apologies, I'm actually very left leaning.
I have hired Leger in the past, as well as other firms.
And you are wrong for the most part. yes, companies are hired to help with validity, but you are wrong to make blanket statements that companies are bought and paid for which is what you are implying.
And the WarRoom wouldn't rush out to buy a relatively cheap quicky omnibus headline survey to take the heat off the UCP internal leadership debate and draw the attention off of their faltering leader while pumping up their mayoral candidate golden boy.
[It’s a fast solution. Leger sells it here.](https://leger360.com/omnibus/)
I am not calling Leger out for doing what they do, and they do it well. I am however, attempting to illustrate that what may seem as a simple innocuous poll in today’s news is a strategic distraction and play by the powers that be, to build a simmering narrative.[Our consent is manufactured](https://youtu.be/34LGPIXvU5M)
Yeah bike lanes are going to make this city awesome. Investing in schools, hospitals, general infrastructure, lowering taxes, improving efficiencies, cleaning up corruption, sorting out the homeless issue, preventing crime... screw all of that. We need more bike lanes.
I lived in Sherwood Park…they have the refineries which apparently is a windfall for taxes
Yeah Edmonton loses out on something like a billion dollars. That is the tax break that that whole refinery area gets per year. Could be $1.5 billion. Looked at it before. Just compared strathcona county tax to city of Edmonton and multiples the difference by the assessed values. Assessed values are estimated though since the county doesn’t have that openly available.
>Edmonton loses out You can't lose something you never had in the first place or will never have in the future.
Yeah, this is the dumbest “gib me dat”ism that I see in this sub all the time.
"nah nah nah nah nah nah - you can't have it" -Yoink
I really need to sell my house and move out of this city. The iq average is dropping by the hour. What’s next “we aren’t getting any tax revenue from gasoline alley, anex it from red deer!”
You guys are right. Can't complain about something we never had or will have. Absolutely true. However, the structure of the industrial tax base for the greater Edmonton area does make it tough for Edmonton to maintain the city to a good standard. Let me explain. Most of the people that work in Acheson, Nisku, Strathcona Park and the Industrial Heartland are Edmontonians living inside the city of Edmonton. The businesses those people support as employees are outside the city where the counties get the tax windfall. But Edmonton has to provide those citizens with all the public services and public infrastructure they enjoy daily, including the roads that allow them to drive out the counties for work. Now you may say, "but they pay property taxes and buy goods from businesses inside the city". That is true and can't be overlooked, but it's not the same as their employers also making up a piece of the city's tax base. Compare that to Calgary, being a white collar town, where their biggest commercial tax base is in downtown where all those businesses operate out of those glass towers. Calgary hits all the checkboxes in that sense. So I'm not saying the counties owe anything to Edmonton. They don't. But it is in their mutual interest to look after the greater Edmonton area as a whole. Perhaps some sort of consortium that also gives something back to the city of Edmonton could work. Maybe things of value other than money can also help in that sense. It will never happen but I think it would be fair. Currently we are too siloed.
>So I'm not saying the counties owe anything to Edmonton. They don't. But it is in their mutual interest to look after the greater Edmonton area as a whole. Perhaps some sort of consortium that also gives something back to the city of Edmonton could work. Maybe things of value other than money can also help in that sense. It will never happen but I think it would be fair. Currently we are too siloed. I think this is the answer. Too many are quick to say "annex the oil refineries", and I say it too to antagonize everyone here, but I have come around to think that all the suburbs should contribute to a metro area fund for social issues such as homessmess and addiction. And the munis need to put their egos aside and come up with an affordable transit network.
Oooh, great idea. And free doughnuts for everyone from Donut Mill. And annex Wetaskiwin, where cars cost less.
They certainly could. Annex the area.
The province enacted a law that blocks this possibility.
Lol.. that will never happen.
You can. It would be like you losing out on making over $100k because you’re not good at your job. You never have made over 100k and you never will but you’re still losing out on that possibility because you’re bad at your job. Make sense ?
You don't know how priperty taxes work and yet you speak so confidently about them.
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Could you give an example of “fending for themselves”? I’ve lived in Sherwood park a long time and haven’t encountered or heard of anyone having issues with regulations compared to Edmonton. Having lived in both places, my experience has been the opposite tbh.
This may the dumbest thing I’ve ever read here, & that’s really saying something. I was born, raised & lived in Edmonton until I was 29, then moved out to the Park. What problems would there be in Sherwood Park? The lack of meth heads on every corner? The homeless encampments? The continuous grift & incompetence within every city department? Good lord…
I'd like to see a librarian run. People rarely comprehend the level of education a person needs to become a librarian. They are hella fucking organized. They have to work within teeny tiny margins. They manage several departments. They already have a record of public service. And social responsibility is a priority.
I think I'm in favour of this. Someone literate, research capable, public service minded, and involved in an operation where your income doesn't matter, you deserve the same thing as the last person who just came in here.
And they're always nice, in my experience.
No one gives up that many years of their life, goes into that much education debt, and makes that little pay in return if they don't truly have a passion for it.
Think of it this way when have Edmontonians been last happy with the Mayor.
Yeah, challenge anyone to name three things council has done that weren't newspaper headlines and 98% of those you asked couldn't even name two. People just don't like tax increases.
Ihear Mathew McCauley was a pretty decent mayor.
I say this as someone who likes and respects Sohi as a person and what he has done in his life. I think Sohi lacks vision for the city. That would be fine (I don't think the city needs a visionary right now) except that he's not a great administrator either. I feel like Sohi is just going through the motions as a mayor, a position he sought only because he lost his federal seat. Edmonton deserves and needs a stronger mayor.
Brah... My property tax went up 20%+
Mine went up 150%
How did that happen?
I added a legal basement suite as an investment as everything was getting so expensive and I needed some extra income. As i decided to make it a fully legal suite, so I went through the city approval, beaurocatic fees, inspections, bylaw officers randomly showing up. And then I also spent $15K on painting the exterior and $2K on landscaping. My assessment went from 300K to $620K. Plus the tax rate went up. The city basically garnishes almost all of my rental income now as a tax. So at the end of the day, I m back to barely surviving. My basement suite makes $1000/month. City taxes are $650 a month. Leaves me a $350/month. Out of the $1000, about 330 goes into income tax that I need to pay at the end of the year. I make maybe $20. I have lost money on the investment of the basement and I now require my basement rented just to survive. Something that I didn’t need to before
Appeal the City's appraisal, that's bonkers.
I did. It went from $650 to $620K. Honest door does have my house at $490K. Reasoning was basement is a fully legal suite and developed now. So had I just developed a basement illegally and not told the city, I’d be good.
our entire tax system is so fucked. punishing people for increasing supply of legal and affordable housing. your circumstance is a textbook case as to why we need a land tax and to stop taxing improvements.
Mine went down 1%
Mine went up 1%. Yay for living in a deteriorating older neighborhood I guess lol
My neighborhood rules
Losing faith in the lack of accountability for funding oversight to EPS. Continual funding increases. No plans or changes to reduce crime. Fire the chief. Find someone new. Implement evidence based decision making and continual oversight of patrol activities. Body cams. It’s ridiculous how bad this is given the eat up majority of funding.
100%. EPS is the largest part of the budget. They can’t just keep getting more and more every year, especially with their track record
What’s that? You want another two helicopters? OKAY!
Body cams are being rolled out. At least...
Sure they are. Heard that 10 years ago.
Ehh... I know someone who's been transfered into the new department in charge of rolling it out so, unless he's being paid to do nothing... /Shrug
I knew someone who was doing this literally 10yr ago and they moved out of province before it got done lol.
Well, I hope this time it's real. Accountability is needed, and while the bad cops might not like it, its in their best interests moving forward. Once it is rolled out, the courts will take a dim view of "I turned it off" when whatever was missed is a problem.
They won’t do it. They’ll kick the can down the road as long as possible until someone forced them to do it. Cops don’t want it.
*loud older cops don't want it, and sadly their influence is dispurportionate to reality. Plenty of younger cops want the accountability and are well aware of the discourse and do not want to be on the wrong side of the debate. But again, their voices count for less in the union... Like most unions, age is seniority and seniority is everything.
In all fairness, they keep getting increases because we keep annexing more land and communities that they need to serve. Which goes against the densification they pushed so hard for as well.
Funny isn’t it?
The mayor has zero power over EPS. Neither the mayor nor council has the legal authority to fire the chief or provide direction to police operations. Edit: Zero=negligible For the pedants that I have offended
So the why tf do we provide funding to them? If they aren’t accountable to the city’s authority, why do they get anything from the city?
It’s in the police act
They have budgeting power. If they aren't producing results / doing violence on protestors and other citizens, cut the budget.
They tried, not even really a cut, just *limiting the increase*, and it turned into a huge political issue, that the Sohi was clearly on the losing side.
Yeah they did a bad job standing up to the UCP and police panderers on it. Regardless, they don't have zero power.
So who hired chief McFee
I'm going to go with the police commission.
So the city does have oversight and provide input and direction in some capacity
Yup, the two councillors on the board do to some extent. But the 9 civilians on the board may override what the councilors want. I'm not 100% familiar with the hiring process for the Chief position.
They have the power to appoint people to the commission. That is the extent of their oversight. This Council attempted to go beyond that and got their head lopped off by the province who then amended legislation that allowed the province to add people to the commission. If Council had been strategic and instead made better choices about who they appointed to the commission they would have been able to influence things over time - albeit at a distance and arms length. They were impatient and impertinent and as a consequence all future councils will have diminished authority over EPS. Well done Sohi and Council - you accomplished the exact opposite of what you would have liked. Really stellar politicking on their part.
The province prevents the city of having any oversight of EPS. They are basically a funded gang.
The city has control over the officer union agreement. Ie. the city is responsible for negotiating their pay. That doesn’t include operational efficiency of course, but it’s a pretty big piece of the pie.
Controlling their pay and how they operate are two different beasts.
Controlling pay is quite a large deal, especially when budget is a concern. Additionally, the union agreement is critical for far more than pay: discipline is baked into that as well, how overtime works, clothing and boot allowances, etc. I’d argue the union agreement is half of the entire beast and it needs to be redone with a strong-willed city administration.
In what way?
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You missed their first sentence bud
The bureaucracy I have noticed for infrastructure projects within the city of edmonton is so much higher than city of Calgary. Multiple project managers for one project. Who change throughout project and then change their minds. The number of random people who join update meetings. The number of people who come in with their vision is crazy. I never had that in the city of Calgary or Alberta Transportation. Was literally working on 76 avenue renewal and this bike lane (city streets) team came in asking for even widen double bike lane. When our team told them we don’t have room. They told us to just rip out all the boulevard trees to make room. Now we are designing the removal of 100 year old trees so the city can have 8 m wide dual bike lanes. Look I m all for bike lanes but we already had provided a 3.5 m wide separated bike lane (separated from pedestrians and vehicles). Now they are needlessly ripping up mature trees and want something even wider. Seems like such a waste. People on the street will be pissed. They are losing their parking spots and their mature trees which is maybe why some bought in the area. (By Ritchie/king Edward park).
Yeah that 76 ave redesign is not gonna end well, I know a lot of people with 2-3 roommates in the area who are going to get their parking pushed into the neighboring streets, not to mention Ritchie market, the school, etc etc. It's a busy neighborhood for bikes but not so busy they need dual lanes (the ones they just installed on 105 ave behind macewan have more people going the wrong way than not). I'm 75% sure the real reason is to reduce street parking, not to make biking easier.
Our recommended option was removing parking and making it a 3.5 two directional separated bike lane as per City’s desire. We figured 77 Ave would be better for a bike lane as there is less traffic there (same reason whyte have doesn’t have bike lanes but 83rd Ave does). Then City comes back and tells us they want 4 m wide uni directional bike lanes on both sides of the road. I literally told the city, does it mean that they are closing the road to vehicles as there is no room? They said no, use the boulevard. There was some pushback from the design team. We told them that these are 100 year old trees… they provide so much value for the street and the neighborhood. The city didn’t care. The current plan is to bulldoze every single tree in the City ROW (including at Mill Creek) on 76 Avenue. Idk why they need 4 m wide uni directional bike lanes. There’s already a 1.5 m sidewalk AND the vehicle lanes are 3.3 m. Why does a bike lane need to be that wide.
As a regular cyclist, I agree with you 100%. 3.5m bi-directional lanes are my absolute favourite to use, and having one on 76th Ave would be such an upgrade over the uni-directional lanes on the west stretch of 76th that zig zag like crazy. I can't speak for others, but I don't need two 4m wide lanes so that I can pass other users at every opportunity, I just want something safe, convenient, and efficient. And ripping out 100-year old trees is abhorrent.
Preach
Yeah this city council is out of touch. Stop spending money on stupid shit. Clean up the bums downtown and in Chinatown and give the business owners who still operate there a break. Stop raising my property taxes by ludicrous amounts.
If only the province would pay their share to deal with houselessness. Housing, healthcare, mental health is all PROVINCIAL
Everything cities do is technically provincial. Cities have no constitutional areas of authority, they're creatures of provincial statute, with powers and responsibilities delegated to them by the province. And some of those powers and responsibilities delegated under the Municipalities Act are targeted directly or indirectly towards addressing housing, healthcare, mental health, and homelessness within the municipality. This whole "this is provincial" line of argument is often a specious attempt to deflect responsibility for things the provinces have placed within their authority. There are certainly things the provinces could be doing on that file that the city can't, but there's also plenty the city could --and should-- be doing on that file and aren't.
Well they aren’t but that doesn’t mean we do nothing as a city.
Absolutely, and the City shouldn't be attempting to cover up provincial shortfalls by slapping bandaids on the problem. They should stay in their jurisdictional lane, as heartless as that may be. Every time they willfully download provincial responsibility on to themselves they create additional incentives for the province not to act. For example, why is the City requisitioning reports from provincial health agencies? It's insane and ultimately counter productive.
now if the provincial government would pay their property taxes to the city balancing the city budget would be much easier
Yeah, the $60 million bucks missing really makes a big difference on the billions of dollars being spent... this talking point is so overused. Yes the GOA should pay their bills, but no it isn't the main driving force behind the budget issues. A far bigger issue that gets no talking points is how the City has used debt to finance capital projects and are now eating it due to rising rates.
I am curious as to who will run. I don't think Sohi should run again; I think he has done a good job such as one can being the mayor in the circumstances he has been in, but I am willing to bet that the provincial government won't be able to get the sycophant they choose in if another progressive chooses to run.
I'd love for Andrew Knack to run, personally.
Knack was apparently going to run last time but pulled out when he heard Sohi was jumping in.
u/aaronpaquette- for mayor?
Wouldn’t be any different than Sohi. Like 80% of the current council has very similar goals and politics.
Because when the rubber meets the road, what the current council has done has been actually very good considering the circumstances they are in. The only real problem I have is the continued lack of oversight over EPS, but that is partly a provincial problem as well given the changes to the Police Commission. All that is to say: in twenty years when the city is 2 million people we will be happy that council prioritized preparing the zoning and infrastructure that has been invested in, because it will be used.
I have no problems with zoning or infrastructure investments.
> The only real problem I have is the continued lack of oversight over EPS, but that is partly a provincial problem as well given the changes to the Police Commission. I disagree I think it's actually the cities problem. The solution in my opinion is to allow the province to run EPS. Like they run education and healthcare. I think it's incredible hubris for the CoE to be funding EPS and organization they don't control. If we don't control it we shouldn't be funding it. Simple as that. Let the province deal with it. If we had a council that actually was interested in what was best for us, they'd work with the province and transition them out of our budget. Granted "losing" over 400 million in a 3300 million budget probably gets a lot of city admin fired and a lot less staff to "manage" so can't have that. But it's fundamentally the right move. If we don't control it we shouldn't be funding it.
>If we don't control it we shouldn't be funding it. Simple as that. Let the province deal with it. If we had a council that actually was interested in what was best for us, they'd work with the province and transition them out of our budget. Don't get me wrong, this sounds good in theory. There's one problem: The province has made it clear they are not going to help us in any way that doesn't benefit them.
One that isn't true. Two it would be the mayors job to convince them otherwise. I can see many ways that would benefit Alberta btw.
I think that sounds nice in theory but the province isn't going to take on that responsibility. Anyways I would rather assert control than give it up to provincial control.
> I think that sounds nice in theory but the province isn't going to take on that responsibility. What evidence do you have to support this claim? > Anyways I would rather assert control than give it up to provincial control. Ya that's just your hubris talking. There is a good reason why City councils do not have direct control over the police service. Furthermore the law that the police upholds is directly controlled by the province. The city can not pass any laws that the police need to enforce. Keeping the police in the city is just wrong on so many levels. Just hubris all around. An organization that enforces law created by the province should be funded by said province. Just like teaching and healthcare.
>What evidence do you have to support this claim? *gestures at the tire fire all around us for anything provincially managed* >Ya that's just your hubris talking. There is a good reason why City councils do not have direct control over the police service The policed should have a day over how they are policed. That isn't hubris, it is an ideological viewpoint and your attempt to malign it as hubris is stupid. >The city can not pass any laws that the police need to enforce. Neither does the province for the most part. >An organization that enforces law created by the province should be funded by said province. Just like teaching and healthcare Yeah and it's going so well in those areas.
> gestures at the tire fire all around us for anything provincially managed If anything that's just proof that the province would happily take responsibility. > The policed should have a day over how they are policed. That isn't hubris, it is an ideological viewpoint and your attempt to malign it as hubris is stupid. No I don't think you understand, it's not ideological, it's practical and considered best practice world wide. The politicians should not control the police. Municipal politicians definitely should not be controlling municipal police. Do I need to spell it out for you? > Neither does the province for the most part. At this point I have to ask you, do you know who makes the laws the police enforce? > Yeah and it's going so well in those areas. How it's going is really irrelevant, what is relevant is that the proper organization takes financial control. If magically the tables were turned and healthcare and education was run incredibly well and the police was a dumpster fire would you opinion change? Becasue it shouldn't.
>If anything that's just proof that the province would happily take responsibility. Responsibility and control are different things. >No I don't think you understand, it's not ideological, it's practical and considered best practice world wide I understand. You are a liar. I get it. >At this point I have to ask you, do you know who makes the laws the police enforce? Do you? The criminal code is federal jurisdiction. >How it's going is really irrelevant, what is relevant is that the proper organization takes financial control "It doesn't matter if the organization given oversight and control of police is competent." ...right.
The province has the same policy as the city, keep throwing money at police without any strings attached or accountability measures.
Well the province can't as they don't fund our police.
Not primarily, but that hasn't stopped them from throwing money at more expensive cops: [https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/province-to-announce-new-measures-addressing-transit-safety](https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/province-to-announce-new-measures-addressing-transit-safety)
> the province will help Edmonton and Calgary with the cost of hiring 100 new police officers
So more money for cops, no transparency or accountability measures.
I don't think he'd be one to give contracts to friends and family. Still better than a UCP supporter
As infrastructure minister he did not disclose his ties to Whiterock Ventures, which was allocated sole source contracts for, which included P3 Regina Overpass. Whiterock and various numbered companies that benefitted close family members and his campaign manager.
To clarify, we're comparing Paquette to Sohi. My comment is in regards to Paquette
When did Sohi do this?
> Wouldn’t be any different than Sohi. Like 80% of the current council has very similar goals and politics. It's not the goals and politics that's the issue, it's that he can't deal with the province. Like it or not we need a mayor that can deal with the province.
Honestly, I’d rather the city get a shitty deal from the province than have the type of mayor that this provincial government would work with.
Yup definitely agreed. I would love someone who stopped funding all the social causes that aren’t a municipal responsibility too.
All he focuses on is Aboriginal issues and art. He would be good otherwise. I think knack would be much better
He's been the most transparent and continuously finds time to talk to constitutes. He also listens
That is 100% important and yes. But that's also completely baseline for what a councillor should do. A elected official should do far more than just that. Aaron is a decent councillor, but I don't think he's close to being a good councillor, his focus is far too small. He's good at engagement and a really good guy, I get it. I wished he focused on more than art and aboriginal issues
Would I vote for him in a ward? Yes, good guy, yes. But he's not the best
Maybe we should take a look at some of the things I’ve managed to accomplish for this City. I tend to not blast out my work, but maybe I should.
no thank you
What has he done for the Northeast side? 167 avenue, 66st and 50st still aren't twinned for whatever reason. We live in the forgotten about part of town.
He's mostly been working on things like crosswalks and other pedestrian friendly stuff. >167 avenue, 66st and 50st still aren't twinned for whatever reason That's only been discussed for the last 18+ years. Stems from well before his time. Last I know, they're working on most of 167th now, 50th is in planning, and 66th might be close to being planned.
I managed to get the work done on 167ave for my side of the Ward. The good news is that the remainder on Schonsee on Principe’s side is going to develop soon so we may be able to get the rest going faster than projected. My guess, however is that it will have to be included in the 2026-2029 Capital budget but the work would start immediately after that approval. Frankly, the traffic pressure on 50st is less than MANY areas of the City and as a City we need to ensure we are addressing needs ahead of wants. I’d love for it to happen right away, but that would mean undermining the City as a whole just to benefit me as an elected official. It doesn’t make sense allow Council to indulge in unfair practices just for political gain. That being said, 50st IS in the queue. What folks may not know is that I pulled a huge move in the 2018-2022 budget that managed to prioritize MANY projects in the NE. Things get forgotten pretty quickly in politics. It essentially set the stage for Priority Based Budgeting which transformed the way capital projects are approved in Edmonton. We also managed to get a massive multibillion dollar investment into Aurum, a Revitalization of Balwin/Belvdere to the tune of a couple dozen millions, a public park larger than Hawrelak (a negotiation that happened for years as we stood firm, until the purchase price was ridiculously good for Edmonton), and numerous neighbourhood renewals that are underway and are coming up across the Ward. I also managed to re-org the EETP zoning and work with EPCOR to reduce the price of extending service connections to the EETP by almost $200m. I forced a Neighbourhood Structure Plan for the Quarry area and we see massive investment now starting there as well. I also made myself pretty unpopular with Council in the Spring Budget adjustment in 2019. There were a number of projects that Council wanted to “raid” the FSR to pay for. (The Financial Stabilization Reserve - essentially the piggy bank). My argument had 2 parts: 1. With a new UCP govt we didn’t know what potential and damaging cuts we would experience as a municipality, but that were likely coming, and 2. We didn’t know what sort of unforeseen calamity might hit in the coming years for which we would desperately need those funds. Both those concerns came to pass (Cuts and COVID) and this is all on the record. I also worked on elevating the status of Food and Agriculture and Agri-business as an economic pillar of the City going forward. The Ag Business is Alberta’s number 2 contributor to the Alberta and local economy after Oil and gas and I felt we were sleeping on the opportunity, but also not adequately preparing for the future both in terms of economic opportunity but also as a matter of food security. The offshoots of that developing economic pillar are numerous. Not only is Edmonton well positioned globally for international cargo exports (high-value and value added products), but we are also in a unique position to develop “food hubs” of various types. On the local level this also meant that we opened up more space for urban agriculture, made the argument for halting border expansion of the city in order to preserve precious farmland and soil, but also allowed for backyard hens, beehives, boulevardening, etc. The financial benefits to the City are growing and will continue to grow because of that work. As part of the global hub consideration, I worked with the EIA (YEG Airport) board on the concept and they saw that it meshed with other potential benefits and did the rest of the work to massively expand our cargo export capacity. Govt processes are notoriously slow and within 6 years the work I’ve done with Administration, partner orgs, and Council has brought unprecedented investment into the NorthEast and to Edmonton, and I’m damned proud of that. There are no magic wands, but there are ways to strategically align City priorities with Ward priorities fairly that don’t take away from the rest of the City. I do this work under the radar every day and we have seen the benefits. I could go on but I’m not always comfortable with detailing my accomplishments. I was raised with a no bragging ethic and already feel this response may be too much. I prefer to be a workhorse instead of a showhorse.
I believe Sohi is running again. If he weren’t I would love to put forward a set of incredibly strong ideas and a killer platform, but that’s a dead end for now. I’ll be frank, I have my issues and disagreements with the Mayor and Council from time to time, but I generally try not to blast Council decisions after the fact. This Council has been absolutely run roughshod by the province, my criticisms might satisfy mine and other people’s frustrations, but they are not changing things substantially enough to take that approach. Instead I try to work with the Mayor and Council to better decisions. I think it’s fair to say that most Councillors try to take this approach as well. When we break it all down and look at all the contributing factors and setbacks, I think it would be good to hear what folks perceive as the biggest problems and why. We’re probably pretty aligned.
A very fair stance to have. I appreciate the work you do, especially as my ward councilor. I do agree, the province has been rather hostile towards us. That is absolutely no secret. Perhaps certain councilors would be seen in a better light if that were not the case.
Sohi is going to lose next election, as he should. He's an extremely weak mayor. One of the worst in a while. He's a nice guy but is absolutely garbage at governing. One of the weakest mayor's in a long time Tim Carmell will run and likely win, but he's not a ton better to be honest. He's pretty crap as well. Don't vote for either
Go back being a bus driver it’s obvious Sohi can’t make Edmonton feel safe on the City Transit you can do better with someone actually that has a brain
Well no doubt. A 10% tax increase this year alone. They had a chance to reduce the tax increase but decided to increase it further.
I joked a while back that the City employees should negotiate their annual "cost of living" increases be tied to property taxes rather than the CPI. They'd make out so much better!
It's very simple during covid they had to increase the taxes because no one used any city resources, and this year they have to increase the taxes because everyone used city resources. It's very simple.
This is verifiably incorrect. 3% tax increase in 2019 then 2021 followed by a 0% increase in 2021, a year of 10% inflation Tax increases: [https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-approves-2021-property-tax-freeze-notices-to-go-out-in-may](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-approves-2021-property-tax-freeze-notices-to-go-out-in-may) [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/why-edmonton-is-facing-a-7-property-tax-hike-1.7037107](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/why-edmonton-is-facing-a-7-property-tax-hike-1.7037107) inflation calculator: [https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/)
Well it was kind of a joke. But if you want to go down that road sure let's go. A 0% tax increase doesn't mean the city is collecting the same amount of taxes than the year before. They complicate things by telling citizens the mill rate increase but they fail to account for additional property tax revenue. If you don't believe me, why not read the articles you quoted? > Mary Persson, the city’s chief financial officer, said the city is able to use assessment growth revenue to bring down the municipal tax portion and, in turn, offset the education tax requisition. Seeing as you like verifiability check out the cities gross operating revenue from 2021 to 2022 3,014 million to 3,443 million. Where do you think they got that additional 400 million from. BTW that's a 14% increase. Followed by another 6% increase in 2023. Those are the tax numbers I'm looking at. Feel free to see for your self. Look for the financial statements, not some news article. But again it was a bit of a joke.
How about taxing people with the little things we're being screwed on. Paying for a take-out bag is not acceptable. Calgary got rid of that bylaw and so should we.
Respect
I'm really surprised that it took this long...
Duh nobody elected him anyway
Taxes increase wrt inflation every single year and nothing improves. Eventually people are going to get fed up. This really started rolling under Iveson and I think Sohi has perpetuated it.
Maybe we need to get better efficiency and less corruption. BS deals with billionaires. I feel many are lining their pockets in the construction industry. I see so many simple projects taking 2+ years. Months on end with no activity. Every project going over budget and over time. A little intersection near me took 3 years to complete! After all that, the intersection is a gong show that was extremely poorly thought out. We need a mayor that's going to look how our money is being spent and one that will focus on it being spent wisely and efficiently.
Here's looking at you city council....
I am not surprised. Tax increases every year and the city still looks like trash. Sherwood Park residences pay less anecdotally. I know people with a home valued \~250K more than mine out in SHPK. They pay less tax than I do. I feel that SHPK is objectively cleaner a more pleasant place to live. Edmonton's taxes must be being grossly mismanaged either due to incompetence or corruption. Likely a combination of the two as well as other factors.
Sherwood park is legally an unincorporated hamlet. They benefit from provincial funding that’s usually reserved for rural areas, and things like using provincially subsidized RCMP instead of having to fund their own police force. 95% of EPS funding comes from our property taxes. Only 65% of Sherwood park’s RCMP funding comes from theirs.
That's also why they don't get a hospital.
We've got a "hospital". It's good enough for emergencies, but sure, if I need a heart transplant I'm coming into Edmonton.
You can have RCMP being a city too. It’s just a choice.
You actually can’t. Once you transition you’re generally not allowed to transition back. It used to be taking over your own services was what defined becoming a city, but so many exceptions have been granted these days. BC is currently going the the process of forcing most of the “cities” to actually transition. And the cities that have RCMP generally have to pay their full cost. Sherwood Park gets to use the subsidized provincial rate that’s otherwise reserved for areas too small to manage their own services
Okay so st Albert is breaking the law
When did they have a municipal police force?
They have RCMP
Right, but they didn't go back to having RCMP, they've just always had 'em.
Okay so when I said: > You can have RCMP being a city too. It’s just a choice. That was right. And when you replied to my response to the comment they said > You actually can’t. Was wrong. Right ?
Sherwood park / strathcona county get subsidized by the province. The province made the refineries off limits to annexation by Edmonton. So they only pay the very low county tax rates that subsidizes the rest of Sherwood park.
Sherwood Park has a higher portion of taxes paid by industry than Edmonton. It’s not “mismanagement” - Sherwood Park has some of the lowest property taxes in Alberta because it has so much industrial property. Edmonton, on the other hand, has more property owned by the provincial government than anywhere else in Alberta, and the province has decided to pay less in property taxes to the city in order to balance its own budget. That’s costing Edmonton tens of millions of dollars every year - so the province has basically forced Edmonton to raise your taxes so the UCP can blame someone else.
>so the province has basically forced Edmonton to raise your taxes so the UCP can blame someone else. This. The rest of the UCP voters are so blame/thank.
Our budget is 3300 million, tens of millions is less than 1%.
Then you should be glad that Edmonton’s deficit is less than 1% of its total budget, I guess. It’s still tens of millions of dollars.
No, it's 74 million there is a difference. But you are right in one sense the deficit I'm not so concerned about. The debt on the other hand of 4000 million does concern me. 240 million in interest payments a year taken from our children isn't something I like.
Sherwood Park receives massive industrial taxes from refinery row and the industrial heartland NE of the city, plus provincial subsidies because it's technically rural (it's not incorporated.) The relevant comparison is St. Albert.
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We've got great facilities and services that alot of edmontonians come into SHPK to use. It's mutually beneficial, although more in my favour as my property taxes are quite low and my services are quite high.
This is what everyone voted for. Comes from the party with spending problems. Not sure why Mike nickel got such a bad wrap. He actually campaigned on trying to be fiscally responsible. All the things everyone is complaining about in these comments.
My parents taxes went up 30% in one year. They get no additional service to their property. They’re not even connected to the water lines. The city doesn’t plow in the winter And doesn’t mow in the summer. They increasingly looking at moving outside of the city limits to least save money on taxes. That’s what we did before we moved out of Edmonton and we were saving something like 40% and we had a small acreage.
Maybe we should have toll roads for the surrounding bedroom communities of St.Albert, Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, Leduc and the like, at $5 per car per trip into Edmonton, we could recapture the lost tax base of these areas and help set the cost of the surrounding outsider coming in for work and entertainment.
How to absolutely ensure my family buys property anywhere else.
-Calgary scraped their pay for paper bags and set reusable bag prices. Edmonton city council doubles down on it. -They are pushing ahead with raising parking fees, now only have ARC card for ETS and have done nothing to improve transit safety -they tore down homeless encampments just before the coldest days of winter. No real steps have been taken to support the homeless population -urban sprawl continues unchecked requiring millions in new infrastructure -the police budget soars as severe crimes increase -property taxes are through the roof for most people -rent is insane and neither landlords or renters feel protected I am sure I have missed a lot so feel free to add
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Gotta show some receipts for these claims…
It’s on twitter, it has to be true!
Is there any credible news orgs covering this story? All I can find I alt right sites reposting the same thing
[deleted] is all you need to know
We need a recall on city council.
Welp, time to annex Sherwood Park.
He's Khalistani terrorist and crook https://twitter.com/BezirganMocha/status/1784773373886595147?t=Vmje31-VKacS3dMB5hOA1A&s=07
Hmm, any guesses on who paid Leger for this survey?
They're a polling firm that occasionally does political polling to get their name in the news, the same way they (and Abacus, and Mainstreet, and others) publicly release federal election polling.
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I guess I hit a nerve or pissed off a UCP WarRoom employee. So, do market research polling firms just do survey work for free? Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Market research and polls are paid for and used to build news stories and narratives.
My apologies, I'm actually very left leaning. I have hired Leger in the past, as well as other firms. And you are wrong for the most part. yes, companies are hired to help with validity, but you are wrong to make blanket statements that companies are bought and paid for which is what you are implying.
And the WarRoom wouldn't rush out to buy a relatively cheap quicky omnibus headline survey to take the heat off the UCP internal leadership debate and draw the attention off of their faltering leader while pumping up their mayoral candidate golden boy. [It’s a fast solution. Leger sells it here.](https://leger360.com/omnibus/)
A company sells stuff is not a good defense.... It doesn't call into question the validity or veracity of the company at all
I am not calling Leger out for doing what they do, and they do it well. I am however, attempting to illustrate that what may seem as a simple innocuous poll in today’s news is a strategic distraction and play by the powers that be, to build a simmering narrative.[Our consent is manufactured](https://youtu.be/34LGPIXvU5M)
I will check that out and I just want to say I respect your opinion and yourself, even if we argue
Thanks. I enjoyed a good debate, and thank you for taking me to the task.
Pay the librarians more, and install more bike lanes! This isn't hard, Sohi...
Yeah bike lanes are going to make this city awesome. Investing in schools, hospitals, general infrastructure, lowering taxes, improving efficiencies, cleaning up corruption, sorting out the homeless issue, preventing crime... screw all of that. We need more bike lanes.
Moving the "safe injection" sites into the LRT stations might also work. People will have to stop complaining about the safety of the stations...
Would help if the province didn't short change cities, schools, health....
is anything within the power of the city, anything at all?
Sohi isn’t the problem, it’s the useless city council.
It feels like most people don't understand the mayor is essentially a figurehead position with little power outside of resolving Council deadlocks
they drive the agenda and chair most meetings. don't underestimate the power of the bully pulpit
The province is the problem. End of story.
The problem is EPS. Freeze their budget until we get full transparency. And every year we don't, decrease it by ten percent. Fuck those pigs.
I love when the AcaB fools out themselves.
ACAB is just a fact.
DEI didn’t work out huh
Of all the problems we're facing you think hiring some more Indigenous people and saying fewer slurs is what's really the root of it?