Notes
A $70,000 gondola study ... Hundreds of thousands for increased municipal staff ... Millions of dollars for rental apartment development ... More millions of dollars to find a way out of what’s becoming a parking/traffic nightmare ... A possible Canmore conference centre ...
Some very scary numbers are being tossed around during budget talks in Banff and Canmore these days.
Scariest of all is that, unlike municipal governments, while we all have wish lists of what we covet, we citizens have to make do with the budget/income we have at our disposal. We pay for what we want with the dollars we have.
Municipal governments, on the other hand, also pay for what they want – with the dollars we have.
Right now, before budget processes really get going, might be a good time to point out that, just like us regular citizens, municipal governments can’t have everything.
In the case of Banff, we’re not sure a municipality really belongs in the housing development industry, but in a town where seemingly little is being done to address a crushing housing shortage, there seems to be little alternative. And where there is outrage concerning a private company’s development of staff accommodation, it’s possible the Town of Banff has little leeway in trying to make something happen on the affordability front.
In our valley, combining wages below the provincial standard with housing costs well above the provincial standard just doesn’t add up. Sustainability is a word used often in this valley, but that combination of low income and high rent just won’t work going forward.
In Banff, council is looking at creating a staff economic prosperity position, in Canmore, Canmore Business and Tourism is pushing to attract higher paying jobs. That’s great, an influx of higher paying jobs would certainly help the situation and nobody can argue with greater economic prosperity, but whether that can happen remains well off in the future.
Trouble is, in both towns, more and larger special events seem to be the focus to increase tourism and business revenue, but in both towns, citizens are growing weary of taking a backseat to visitors filling their towns many weekends of the year. Many citizens already feel they are sharing their town with visitors more than enough.
In Banff, traffic/parking snarls can already virtually halt traffic on busy “special event” weekends; what’s the upside to creating/allowing even more of them?
And while an attempt to induce paid parking for a trial period in Banff was made, to allow users to pay for their parking and reduce traffic and congestion, it was cut short after great outrage by Banff Residents Against Paid Parking (BRAPP). Now, though, almost every mention of addressing the parking/traffic situation looks as though it will cost millions.
Will taxpayers really have to ante up an estimated $18 million for a parkade? Pay $5.4 million to add a level to the Bear Street parkade? Shell out several million dollars to upgrade roadside parking?
Is that better than paid parking? Is it really better that taxpayers bear the brunt of traffic/parking snarls than those who actually are parking?
Many of the numbers that are currently being bandied about by our councils wouldn’t be out of place in municipalities as large as Calgary or Edmonton. But those cities, by comparison, can count on hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, not just thousands, to ante up.
The Outlook commends both town councils for being fiscally responsible with past budget setting and sincerely hopes, for the sake of the taxpayer, that they continue to be.
