[homeles_ot-l] Aug 19 FW: [Ottawabudgetcoalition] URGENT ACTION - WE NEED YOU AT CITY HALL

[Lynne Browne]

FYI 
Lynne Browne 
Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness 
147 Besserer Street, Ottawa ON  K1N 6A7 
613-241-7913 x 205, lbrowne at ysb.on.ca 
www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: ottawabudgetcoalition-bounces at list.web.net
[mailto:ottawabudgetcoalition-bounces at list.web.net] On Behalf Of shellie
Sent: August 15, 2008 2:54 PM
To: ottawabudget
Subject: [Ottawabudgetcoalition] URGENT ACTION - WE NEED YOU AT CITY HALL

Big changes are being proposed for how the 2009 City Budget will be 
brought forward and presented to the public for consultations. Corporate 
Services will discuss the proposal to reduce the Draft Budget document 
to 100 pages and to establish a "Budget Challenge Working Group" of 
select councillors, a consultant and the Mayor at their next meeting. 
People for a Better Ottawa is appealing to Ottawa residents, groups and 
agencies to make a presentation to raise concern about these changes.

Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee:
*
Meeting Date*: Tuesday 19 August 2008
*Meeting Location*: Champlain Room
*Meeting Time*: 10:00
*Contact*: Diane Blais 613-580-2424, x. 28091, diane.blais at ottawa.ca 
<mailto:diane.blais at ottawa.ca>    (contact Diane to get your name on the 
list to present)

Here's the link to the city report about the Budget Challenge Working 
Group and the cutting of the budget documents down to 100 pages.
 
http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/occ/2008/07-09/ACS2008-CMR-
OCM-008%20-%202009%20Budget%20Format%20and%20Presentation%20-%20FINAL.htm
 
The two attachments in the report are the work done by Bob Plamondon, 
the consultant hired by the city, and include a mock-up of the 100-page 
budget.
 
The proposal is essentially to reduce the material in the budget that 
will be available to the public. There is a second motion that 
line-by-line budget info will be compiled and available to councillors 
either electronically or in print form.
 
The second part of the "less info" motion is to create a Budget 
Challenge Working Group made up of some senior staff, three councillors 
and an outside 'helper' to go through the budget proposals from the 
various city departments and "challenge" their contents. The purpose is 
to question how things are done, is this something we need to be doing, 
can it be done more cheaply, should we be outsourcing this, etc, etc. 
These questions would be asked and answered behind closed doors and the 
public would never know what goes on.
 
Though they say the Challenge process would not be able to remove things 
from the budget - only the full Council process could do that, the 
question to be asked is how long would it take for the messages put out 
by those three councillors to influence what is brought to the Challenge 
process and how things are presented both there and at Council? When 
staff is recommending things for cutting, will they include the 
'challenged' items as top-of-the-picks or will they be able to maintain 
their own order?
 
The other question is who will the three councillors be and how will 
they be chosen? Is this the beginning of a process that will eventually 
morph into a Budget Committee that will have the power to change the 
budget and insert/remove items without public scrutiny? There are 
communities, Toronto being one, where the head of the budget committee 
is a very powerful position because without money, your programs cannot 
function and he or she has the ability to control who/what gets funded.
 
Another important point is the level of information available to the 
public. Without the info, you can't properly participate in the budget 
process. The decisions about what items are or are not funded are 
basically the decisions about what our city is, what it offers its 
residents and how the services are distributed. For councillors to say 
they don't want the info or that it's too complicated or too much to 
read/digest is astounding. First of all, there is no law saying you have 
to read every word just because it's available. But those people who do 
want to look at what the city is proposing should be able to access it. 
One of the few things the province does not allow the city to delegate 
to someone else is the city budget. This is because it is the base 
document that controls what the city is and does for its residents. 
Instead of providing less information, the city should be giving us more 
info so we can have a better handle on what we are getting as a 
community and how our tax dollars are being spent.


 
People should be there on the 19th and question councillors about how it 
improves our ability to engage in civic affairs an understand what the 
city is doing if we have less information.
 

<mailto:diane.blais at ottawa.ca>

_______________________________________________
Ottawabudgetcoalition mailing list
Ottawabudgetcoalition at list.web.net
http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/ottawabudgetcoalition

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG. 
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.6.5/1618 - Release Date: 18/08/2008
6:51 AM
 

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG. 
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.6.5/1618 - Release Date: 18/08/2008
6:51 AM