I wish everyone a Happy New Year and the very best wishes for you and your families. We live in a great district in the best city in Canada.

A new year and a new city budget: This City Council has worked very co-operatively during the past year to ensure that we are able to deliver the best in services and facilities for 2012. As many of you are aware from previous columns I have written, and from our Town Hall Meetings, that the actual budget work began with the first ever Strategic Plan. Senior City staff, the Mayor and Council worked together on the Strategic Planning exercises in the early spring of this year, with the final plan endorsed by City Council this past June. All of the “heavy lifting” for our annual city budget was completed during the strategic planning process. Our direction to city administration was very clear that the budget to support the Strategic Plan could not exceed a 3.5% increase in any of the four years of our council mandate. Some residents did question why there was little if any debate during the budget meetings conducted in November prior to the formal adoption of the budget by Council on December 20th. I trust that explaining the process as I have, will assist residents in understanding why the budget passed unanimously on December 20th. I will continue with the next Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday January 17th to communicate and educate Pittsburgh District residents regarding our city budget. To assist me in doing this, I have once again invited our CAO Gerard Hunt to make a presentation with the budget overview. I have also invited Commissioner Lanie Hurdle who is responsible for Community Services to make a presentation on the plans and expenditures for Pittsburgh District. I am certain residents will be pleased with all the amenities planned for our district.

After the presentations there will be a question and answer, comments and discussion period. I want to make city processes transparent and understandable for everyone. Payment of taxes is necessary to maintain services and facilities, but often as not, we do not understand why tax rates must increase and how this is determined. My objective for this meeting is to ensure that everyone understands the tax process.

Our Town Hall Meeting in September was very well attended and our best in terms of participation and my hope is that we can continue to build on this on January 17th. Please take the time to come out and join us at the ANAF Hall from 7:30pm to 9:30pm.