City told to retain river clean-up, trash pick-up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2019 (2459 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city council gallery was filled to capacity Monday night with local residents voicing their opposition to proposed cuts to parks grants, river clean-up and garbage pick-up for churches and small multi-family buildings.

Royden Kayden, a volunteer with Save Our Seine, said the $30,000 annual grant to the group is used to pay the salary of a part-time executive director who oversees a team of volunteers who clean up the river, its banks and the greenway.

More than 30 local residents registered to speak at a special meeting of the water and waste, environment and riverbank committee Monday night, with many of them concerned about the elimination of the grant to Save Our Seine.

Losing the grant, Kayden said, will likely result in seeing the river return to what it was 40 years ago.

“It will be just a mud creek full of shopping carts and debris,” Kayden said.

The water and waste department appears to have weathered the recent austerity move at city hall with minimal disruption. Like police and transit, the department is also facing a two-per-cent cap on its tax-supported operations but it’s proposing cuts that are being felt across the community:

— Reducing the number of after-hours emergency crews from two to one.

— Ending the annual flushing of water main lines.

— Eliminating 16 full-time equivalent positions over four years.

— Putting critical riverbank stabilization projects on hold for several years.

Previously, the committee was told the current contracts for garbage collection at about 1,600 affected properties would be allowed to lapse and not be renewed. That would mean a savings of $1.6 million in 2022 and $3.5 million in 2023.

The department’s four-year budget plan presentation, along with those from other departments, can be found online at: http://wfp.to/9Zb

Public feedback to a variety of cuts from civic departments will be heard at special meetings occurring every day this week at city hall.

In a prepared statement, former NDP health minister Tim Sale opposed the elimination of garbage pick-up, along with cuts from other department budgets.

“We cannot have a great and growing city on a budget increase that barely matches inflation, uncorrected for assessment or population growth,” Sale said, adding that increasing costs to small apartments and condos will become a further disincentive to infill development.

“The city gains much more tax revenue from duplexes, triplexes than from from single family dwellings,” Sale said. “Removing garbage pick-up from smaller multi-family dwellings is another disincentive to infill construction because it will require higher rent per unit, and hence a lower level of affordable infill.”

Coun. Janice Lukes, not a member of committee, said she doesn’t understand how Mayor Brian Bowman and members of his executive policy committee arrived at a two per cent budget increase cap for the department.

Coun. Ross Eadie questioned the merits of ending the annual flushing of the city’s underground water lines, adding that move was initiated to deal with the brown water problem and he’s not aware that issue has been corrected.

Eadie said it was inappropriate for EPC to propose continuing the reduction of business taxes while civic department are proposing to cut services.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Water & Waste 2020 2023 Budget Plan