Ep 53 audio

welcome to the bill kelly podcast critical discussions in critical times here's your host bill kelly and welcome to have this is the bill kelly podcast critical discussions and critical times i'm your host bill kelly good to have you with us today uh... we're getting to that time of year into the this early spring not quite spring on that calendar yet but i mean where municipal budgets are finally set and i know they take their sweet time to get around to these things and they'll give you a a dozen reasons why it happens is to the extent that it does but uh... it seems that cities like hamilton in toronto saint catherine's and others are finally coming up with the number uh... what you what you mean is full taxes are going to be for this year and this is very important because as we've talked about in in various podcasts uh... before back in the old radio show uh... municipal budgets first of all this is the the month tax money that's going to have the most impact on your community right this is your house your streets uh... how's snow going to get cleared when the garbage gonna get picked up road improvements and things like that and and it's it it varies obviously from community to community uh... and uh... numbers of color for the city of hamilton right now i think it's instructive to look at this uh... in although we're going to talk with the hamilton budget i think uh... a lot of the concerns are applicable to many other municipal budgets and uh... to get some insight into this we're pleased to welcome back to the show uh... john best who is the publisher of the bay observer has been following the story uh... for many many months now john great to have you back in the show thanks for joining us today good to be with you bill i watched and read your pieces in the in the uh... the major for what what was going on through this process right now and uh... as you wrote uh... just a couple days ago uh... paving through the hundreds of pages of budget documents provided a few facts emerge beyond the raw numbers the format of the document confines itself to tax increases and we know what that number is going to be in the number of counselors as you and i've talked about in the past a kind of patting themselves on the back and say well we did a hell of a job this year uh... five point eight percent increase a lot of a mission pass miss apologies whether i did not do as well as that but there's a story between the lines here that rarely gets told and i know you've done some exploring on this and i think it's it's very germane to this discussion about what's being spent it's it's it's one thing to say here's how much it's going to cost you but what are they spending the money on we don't talk about that and we probably should yeah it it was an interesting budget and and it was the first budget i have seen from hamilton since the strong their uh... policy was uh... adopted and and you could see the difference between a budget this year and and previous budgets from from our city treasurer who uh... as you well know from your days uh... uh... is very thorough very detailed uh... and uh... you know i'm real straight shooter uh... and this budget uh... had a lot more political overtone and they were very focused on uh... trying to lay as much of the increase off on the province as possible and uh... in fact they're going to actually adjust the tax bill to show how much of the increase is attributable to uh... either uh... government downloading or uh... government underfunding which is uh... that by by the province mainly which is another uh... kind of a dicey area because it's not uh... as far as i can see the government is not in uh... out of compliance with any cost-sharing agreements it has with the city it's just that the costs have gone up for various programs and the provincial share has an increase so it it was uh... it was an interesting budget in the sense that it it seemed to talk mainly about the amount of the increase rather than the raw dollars and uh... i uh... you know the raw dollars we we had a budget that's going to affect taxes of over one billion dollars one point one seven billion dollars this year and uh... you had to look for that uh... in and there were hundreds of pages of material uh... i i just sensed there was more of a political overtone to even even the staff description of the budget every time we get into raw numbers and we talk about the challenges facing any city hamilton burlington you name it uh... invariably the pressures on city council to cut out the frills to cut out the pet projects let's just do the basics let's get through this and and try to keep this is affordable as we can uh... for the taxpayers of that particular community uh... in in reading your piece and and talking to some other folks who have been following this process as well uh... i think there's an argument to be made here john that uh... the council did a lousy job of trying to cut out the perks and the and uh... and the pet projects well they didn't do a lousy job they they made no effort whatsoever to uh... to cut out the uh... uh... what what we're calling euphemistically here in hamilton they're called council referred items so so what they are is uh... we start the year twenty twenty three with the whatever the budget was that was set to begin the year and then uh... council referred items are all the add-ons that council has piled onto the budget which they want to be considered in the twenty twenty four process so we've got uh... i don't know it's a well over twenty million dollars worth of what they call council referred items resulting in somewhere in the ninety new staff area uh... a lot of money and and it represents uh... something in the area of two percent of this budget increase of five point eight is council referred items and uh... luckily uh... our our city staff are pretty thorough uh... you can see areas where they've been kind of pushed into making quasi political statements but if you go through the entire document the entire truth is there and uh... you know these council referred items have added a lot of staff that will never get rid of and uh... as i say over over twenty million and and almost a third of the total tax increases attributable to these things that council added on in year and and as you go through those and i know that uh... a lot of councilors are very reticent for anybody to go through line by line to say well what's this why why are you spending this uh... but it would behoove us to do that at least in a in an overview uh... size to get an idea as to what's going on uh... if you were to go through some of these projects that you've just referred to you know the question the obvious question out of this is do we really need to do that and do we really need to do that this year and i got the sense they didn't ask that question very often during these deliberations no no i can point to two capital issues now as you know capital is uh... you know it's spread out over a number of years so the dollars that we're talking about are spread over years but uh... we're still going to spend sixty million on bike lanes here and we're still going to spend i'm going to call it fifteen million on uh... making uh... our main artery main street into a two-way street so there there's a couple of things that uh... stayed on the budget council referred items a lot of them dealt with homelessness and housing and fairness and certainly there's something major that needs to be done there but as far as i know the the sixty seventy e-bikes uh... that were recommended are still going to be purchased uh... so there uh... there there was no attempt made to cut uh... any of those kind of things and and the other point here bill is uh... this whole thing is down to five point eight percent in our case only because of an unprecedented drawdown of uh... of reserves and uh... you know from your days as somebody had said to you bill we're going to drain the reserves by a hundred and fifty five million this year i think that would have raised some eyebrows on on the councils that you served on well and and that's the the arithmetic here isn't it john i mean they say look at we've done a great job and we've whittled down that potential thirteen percent increase down to five point eight but have they uh... they really just took a big chunk of money out of the reserves and say here that'll make it easier for you but you can't do that every year and as you say that's not sustainable and it really and it gives a false sense of of of where we are right now that number probably should be an awful lot higher because you should be touching on reserves that's that's that's save it for a rainy day that's the car you know to pay for things that could come up from time to time uh... you gotta have those i mean it's mandated the municipalities have to have something in the reserve you can't keep draining them just a lower the tax rate a tax time uh... and then anticipate that you're you know everything's going to be fine because usually it's not and and we've has seen examples you and i've talked about this i mean things come up through the course of a year you know the flash floods that come up in a number of other things like that and there's a legitimate argument for saying okay we need to dip in the reserves to fix that or get this done but to simply say well it'll make us look better so let's just dip into the reserves is is really i think contrary to the tone and and what council should be doing here uh... you know are they really being uh... you know the stewards of the city when they simply say let's spend whatever the hell we want on our projects and we'll just dip into the reserves uh... that's that's really putting it on a credit card isn't it well yes it is and uh... i did get some information from staff today now the interesting thing is this whole drawdown on reserves they're going to produce a report in may that's going to explain uh... how they've drawn them down we already know that because it's on the budget uh... they're going to drain seven reserve accounts down to zero and close them uh... what we don't know is is there a plan to put the money back in and uh... a note i got today suggests that essentially we are going to get increased taxes uh... in the future so instead of relying on reserves here's a here's a bright idea let's raise taxes and that appears to be what the strategy is but that's not going to impact these guys this year so they're okay with it in other words we'll deal with that or a future council will have to deal with that but right now in twenty twenty four it's not our problem well yeah it is they really really just kicked it down the road haven't they they have and and uh... you know here's the funny thing about this council we have so many new members and one of the arguments they love to say is we had a major turnover in the last election and a lot of old-timers got either booted out or just had enough and quit uh... but one of the great arguments that's being used against the survivors that are still on council you guys kept taxes too low for so many years you neglected your duty uh... and here's the mess we got the funny thing is that the hundred and fifty five million in reserves that they're now using to lower this year's tax bill is all the result of what those old timers did over the years those reserves are there because of uh... you know the kind of budgeting that was done in previous years and they're drawing it down uh... and that they're drawing down a huge chunk of it i mean a hundred and fifty five million is that's not chicken feed bill what about these and again i know they wrestle when you use the term like pet projects but you mentioned a couple of them right now that they said look at you know damn the torpedoes we're gonna go full ahead on this and one of them that i've seen has received an awful lot of pushback uh... at least on social media and some of the people i've talked to i'm a taxpayer too so are you uh... is the sixty million dollar for bike lanes and and uh... you know we can have the debate philosophically about bike lanes and i know that you know they've made huge strides in the last number of years about that but you know as one person told me he says yeah i got good news for you people all you people in the tent cities around there the encampments uh... we can't do a whole lot for you they're too bad so sad but there's gonna be a real nice bike lane going past uh... where you guys have got your tents now it it just seems as if the city council doesn't seem to have their priorities straight here no well they they established the one thing i've learned about this council uh... and its predecessor council because some of the uh... progressive element got elected in the last uh... council and they kind of finish the job with this council they they declare various things they've declared i think they've declared four emergencies uh... homelessness which is an emergency climate and on and on and so you know when they're declaring the emergency it's not that hard i mean it's a motherhood kind of thing and so you tend to get if not unanimous support you get overwhelming support for these various declarations then what happens is uh... a year or two later uh... when some of these schemes come forward like the bike lanes uh... or like uh... the e-bikes they're saying oh no no you guys voted for climate change you you voted that that was an emergency and and this is the natural outcome so there's been a quite a bit of that kind of delayed you know action going on which is you know i i think a little bit misleading if in fact when the uh... when the emergencies were declared uh... the movers of that had some idea of what it was actually going to mean money-wise uh... a year down the road when i go and get my car serviced and uh... it's never a happy day uh... and they do you know that uh... you know the front to rear evaluation of everything okay yeah i know Mr. Kelly you just came in to get your tires changed but here's this long list of stuff as we looked over your car and uh... it's probably all stuff i mean take them at their word and say okay these are probably all legitimate concerns and problems but then you have to bring the discussion around and say okay what needs to be done right now what are the safety issues what are the things that probably should be done but maybe can wait another year or two i don't know if the city council does that uh... you know in other words in this particular case i get the uh... the philosophical idea of what bike lanes and the environmental issues and and and and that's a very valid discussion to have when you're dealing with homelessness when you're dealing with tax increases when you're dealing with with some seniors and others on fixed incomes right now that can't afford to pay property taxes anymore do you really put that at the top of the list and say look at i'm sorry but your situation Mr. so-and-so but we're going to build these bike lanes uh... because we feel that in the long term that's going to help us sometimes in your budget in your household budget in mind you've got to say yeah we we should do that we need to do that but it's going to have to wait uh... and i don't i don't hear that discussion very much as you mentioned about some of the there are still some veterans on this council uh... i think all of them voted against this budget and the consensus seemed to be from them is this is not the way to run a city you're going to get yourself into deeper trouble and and of course those words just kind of flew right by some of these other people that thought no this is great we're still doing what we want to be doing here well the other thing is uh... doug ford is unfortunately uh... stumbled into this as well he created the strong mayor system when he thought the mayor of toronto was going to be john tory and he had no idea that the leader of his opposition was going to be the mayor of hamilton but now we question is i'd love to ask doug would you have put in the strong mayor system if you realize you know two of your bigger city well your biggest city and one of your other big cities uh... we're going to have socialist mayors uh... you know within months of you implementing the strong mayor system i think he would have pulled it back so so one of the problems you know one of the issues here is that uh... frankly uh... unless there's a major council revolt of two-thirds uh... the mayor gets to uh... set the tone and and in the case of hamilton she made it very clear uh... that her intention was to instruct staff to use reserves as much as possible to mitigate this budget the phrase she used was this is the rainy day and so you know uh... i'm not saying that uh... the budget uh... you know could have been uh... down to you know six or seven percent with cuts but uh... you know uh... this this five point nine based on burning up a hundred and fifty five million in reserves uh... it's you know otherwise i i think the budget would have been around eleven percent so that's the spending we're spending it at an increased level ten or eleven percent but we're masking it is five point nine by driving you know what was an open the piggy bank well and there's some other elements to this to that as you said when yet he he could be blinded by science here and he can be blinded by numbers when when it comes to budget time and and the bottom line here is that the people who live in these communities of the ones that are going to be impacted by this uh... and you can touch the world one of those other projects i want to just if we could slide into that uh... the conversion of main street uh... which is the main thoroughfare for folks who are familiar with hamilton uh... runs right through the city from from dundas all the way over to stoney creek uh... itself long-wave i mean some of the city council's are calling it just a highway in the middle of the city and and they've they've talked about traffic calming measures of a number of other things the companion element to this discussion of course is that the l r t if they ever break ground on this thing is going to be happening on king street which is just about a block and a half away which is essentially going to wipe traffic out of that area so now they want to move main street to two-way as opposed to the one-way which has been since what i guess the nineteen fifties on that but a lot of money yeah but but uh... it's now the solution of the presenting has got people all up in arms maybe could explain that well uh... what what staff came up with uh... is is the solution that doesn't appear to have made anybody happy because they're only going to have one so right now it's an eastbound four-lane road basically five lanes in some places uh... most of the lanes are still going to be eastbound there's only going to be one westbound lane and and it's going to have a bus on it so every time the bus stops to pick up passengers uh... all the traffic will stop behind it the interesting thing about this was the way this came about was staff uh... council ordered staff to to they made the policy decision we are going to change uh... the street to a two-way street before they did any kind of a study so they they made the decision we're going to reverse the street and then they said staff you come up with a way of making it work so in december staff came up with their best effort and uh... first of all they jumped all over it because it was uh... three lanes one way and one lane the other and staff had to explain why you know with traffic coming in off 403 and coming in from the west of the city there was just no way to make it two and two so so that was disappointing and then the cost they presented a cost figure of something like uh... twenty six million dollars and and councillors were angry about that because you know there was some outcry for the public twenty six million dollars what the hell are you doing and uh... under pressure staff brought out a report this year and said well we we did have a a ten million dollar repave of the street on our long-term list so the actual cost of this reversal is fifteen million i don't think that's going to resonate much with the public my main objection to it is when they uh... made the decision to convert the street to two-way they said to staff in the meantime what kind of traffic calming can you put in now right now so staff went ahead with a bunch of things uh... knockouts and uh... you know uh... changing street lighting and or uh... stop lights and so on the result was there was a significant reduction in accidents just by those measures so if the if the reason for converting the street to two-way is uh... safety and and it was an issue there was no question it was an issue why don't we try more of these traffic calming measures before we go all the way with the two-way conversion it seemed to be making progress but it was just okay we've got that now let's get on with the conversion kind of mentality so uh... and and there was a little straw poll on the radio station today where it was like eighty percent are against it and uh... i think that's another problem we have in hamilton uh... you know not to be too parochial but bill i i have never seen a council that represents this community as little as this council they are simply not in tune with what hamilton is and and the mood of the people they're completely uh... out somewhere on their own which kind of echoes some of the things i've talked about in the past and talked about extensively when i was doing the radio show here uh... is that it seems to be at least in hamilton anyway driven by ideology not by pragmatism uh... here's what we need no no no here's what my ideology dictates that we need you know there in our perfect world there will be bike lanes there will be uh... people that are leaving their cars or selling their cars and simply hopping on public transit to get to work and to go and and uh... you know live work and play uh... and public transit is going to be the answer to everything so don't worry about that there won't be any congestion or or gridlock because people won't be in their cars uh... and that's not the reality uh... they don't seem to get that i mean just about every one of them uh... i think around that council table gets in the car every morning and drives to work uh... and so do a lot of other people in this city and what is going to happen when they finally do this conversion and you know it and i know we've lived here all our lives is uh... people are simply going to avoid the downtown they're simply going to say i'm not driving down there anymore uh... it may look pretty uh... but you know you're going to be tearing up king street when you finally start building this LRT uh... you know the old joke that hey i can't get there from here is going to be the hamilton reality coming up for the next little while and it's really going to be counterproductive to to all these councils that say we build this and all of a sudden there's going to be all this developing and people are going to build stores and they're going to want to live right down there it's going to be a horror show not just during construction but even afterwards and they don't seem to see that i mean they're so driven by this this uh... fabulous vision that they have right now that they don't see how practically it's going to have an impact on the community well uh... we're heading into probably a decade of chaos in hamilton if the LRT goes ahead uh... we're probably it's going to be well into the thirties before we see what the city looks like sort of post LRT you know they so much money being spent on that project and increasingly you're seeing changes in technology you're seeing electric buses now becoming viable for canada you know you're looking at a city like london ontario that is uh... going to install thirty kilometers of bus rapid transit for about a a tenth of the cost that we're going to spend here uh... on a fourteen kilometer LRT line uh... we've got some very fixed ideas for for progressive people there's a lot of rigidity in people's thinking and uh... you know it's kind of sad to see uh... and to your comment about people avoiding the downtown that's already happening bill uh... you people have learned to you know i'm i live in uh... in the mountain area of hamilton now and uh... you know uh... i might go downtown twice a month and and unfortunately you're seeing more and more people just skirting around the downtown uh... because it's uh... between encampments between the condition of the roads uh... it's uh... it's really uh... it's kind of a soviet uh... landscape really well and it's it's the old adage if you don't learn from history you're bound to repeat it uh... you know hamilton was ravaged as many other communities were uh... in the late nineteen fifties into the early sixties uh... by businesses vacating the downtown and and you know boarded up office space and boarded up cellar fronts and things of this nature uh... and that was caused by economics and i think people's you know zeal for saying hey there's a better deal out there let's go and be part of that mall that they're building up on the south end of the city uh... and i think we've learned from that and we understand the importance of downtown's to to communities but now uh... with some of these projects that they're they're they're moving in here whether or not there's public support for it i i would venture and i know you've written extensively about this i don't even think there's a whole lot of support right now for the LRT uh... but they're going to go ahead and do it anyway because they've been this is what their vision is you know come hell or high water never mind what the people want uh... we're going to build this they're basically making it inconvenient for people uh... to go downtown and and they say well you know you don't need to you know that we'll have public transit for you uh... how much is it going to cost is only going to be one line what happens for people in ancaster and dundas and glenbrook uh... they can't access that it's going to be a pain in the ass for them but they don't think they just say well they will work that out when we get to it but uh... we're going to see you know that the ghosting of downtown again because people simply avoiding it you're right anybody who's driving down king street now from stoney creek or the east end of the city usually when they get to wellington they deke up onto hunter street and even that now because they've got bike lanes in the way so what do they do they bleed into the residential neighborhoods and that's all of a sudden where you get all these complaints uh... from residents hey there's people speeding through this neighborhood uh... you know it's unsafe for our kids they can't play in the neighborhood they can't play at the park across the street because of the increased traffic uh... people aren't going to leave their cars around and simply say well I'll walk or I'll take public transit uh... they're going to find a plan b and it's not going to be pretty and it hasn't been pretty and i think we've already seen that impact too well i was looking at uh... some information from statistics canada uh... we have nearly thirty million automobiles in canada right now so uh... you know if you're ideologically attuned to getting rid of the car and uh... number of our counselors are in that category uh... there's going to be a very long transition period uh... so there's almost uh... there's almost one car there's certainly one car for every adult in canada now but there's almost one car for every man woman and child in canada and uh... you know i i love to be in a position to drive an electric car i'd like to you know get rid of an internal combustion engine uh... but you know we what we're trying to do is make aspirational things happen immediately and in the case of hamilton it's it's just costing us too much money uh... it's uh... you know we're we're we're pretending we're living in a post car world when in fact we're not and uh... it's uh... it's going to be tough to persuade ordinary people in hamilton frankly uh... are just less and less of a factor uh... with with the nature of our council right now it'll be hard to persuade them that any of this makes sense well and the numbers tell a story too don't they i mean uh... electric car sales are are woeful in this country uh... and one of the most woeful areas of this country with car sales is ontario because they don't offer rebates in other words there's no financial assistance to do it and and often the distance there john in the horizon uh... you've got political leaders in both here and the united states that are basically saying you know this EV thing is just a load of crap uh... which tells me that if they ever gain power and that's a possibility in both situations uh... you may see some of those funds dry up and all of a sudden uh... that initiative is going to be gone too and and i'm not saying you know electric cars are a bad thing i i i share your enthusiasm i'd love to be able to get one but uh... in the meantime uh... people are still sticking with what they've got uh... and again as you say this is a council that seems to be aspirational and and and and blinded by ideology and i think i'm concerned about that because as we just noticed with these numbers we've talked about with the budget it has an impact on everybody in this community uh... you know property taxes are the most regressive taxes because it's not based on your ability to pay uh... if the taxes keep going up and you're on a fixed income like a lot of people are that are watching this right now what are they going to do you know i was uh... sorry i have to give up our house honey but you know what it's it's all for the good because you know we're going to have bike lanes in a few years we won't be here by then and we're going to have to move up to god knows where right now but it's it's creating some some consternation i think for an awful lot of people so this is this is where i think we turn our attention and we've already seen some of that frustration with the leadership or lack thereof at city hall uh... from the mayor right on down and not just here we're hearing it in toronto we're hearing it in belleville the belleville mayor as you've been reporting uh... is banging on the door of queen's park right now and saying Mr. Premier i need money and it just seems sorry but it's not happening and you're going to see more of that i think as this goes on yeah we're uh... you know these are uh... i've never seen uh... a disconnect uh... in certainly in this city hamilton uh... between the elected and uh... the old and the you know the peons that are that are expected to vote and pay taxes i'm not sure how this is going to end up but one thing i can tell you i have never also never seen as much political activity going on this far out from the next municipal election there are groups springing up in almost every ward there's uh... there's very definitely some organization there's even fundraising going on so uh... it appears that uh... we might be in for a very interesting election uh... the last election was called a change election and uh... we may see a second change election uh... coming on the heels uh... in four years time three years from now well as you say and as as this starts to filter down people start getting their tax bills and more importantly start going around this community and seeing what's not being done uh... or what's being done poorly i think you're gonna see that that accelerate uh... we're out of time this time around john it's always a pleasure to have you on the podcast to talk about these sorts of things uh... as always uh... we appreciate your input and uh... we'll talk again soon i hope my pleasure bill john best publisher of the very observer that's it for this edition of the bill kelly podcast you can find us anywhere where you get your podcast spread the word tell all your friends about this as well until next time bill kelly podcast brought to you by wizened law personal injury lawyers listen you didn't choose to get injured but you can choose the right lawyer wizened law 905-522-1102 or wizenedlaw.com wizenedlaw.com