It was a stupid promise anyway
Now it’s official. Larry O’Brien (cops closing in on him and all) has dropped his famous propery tax freeze promise. Good. It was a stupid promise anyway.
And didn’t we see it coming? Who actually thought he was going to deliver on that one? Who actually – when faced with what a starving city has to offer – would have gone for that?
It troubles me enormously that the mayoral candidate I supported, Alex Munter in case you haven’t figured it out, promised exactly what Larry O’Brien is now delivering – a reasonable property tax increase and was thoroughly trounced at the polls for doing so.
I’m troubled because it just seems like the electorate wants to be lied to (queue the Tom Waits tune), but moreso by the wasted opportunity.
I get the feeling O’Brien is actually surprised by the situation at city hall.
He made all these plans to change the way Ottawa does business, do things differently, think outside the box, be the change, choose your attitude, and whatever other pat bizspeak catchphrase you care to insert here, while on the hustings, but when he gets to the corner office, he discovers that things aren’t as he imagined.
The feds have starved the provinces, the provinces have starved the cities and there’s no money anywhere to be found. Services are already cut back, transit fees too high, etc etc. So all his plans are out the window and all he can do is react to things. The cops need 6% more. Fine. OC Transpo wants to hike fares. Okay. We need to do something about mass transit. Another study? Love it. Report date after the next election? Better still.
And after all the ad hoc doling out of money, there’s nothing left for any priority items for funding. Which is fine, since he didn’t have any and his main issue – a tax freeze – is already in the toilet.
Munter had at least anticipated the need for a tax increase and would have planned what to do with it. I think Munter’s administration would have been much more middle-of-the-road than I would prefer, but it would have been head and shoulders above the chaos we’ve brought upon ourselves now.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Why was it stupid. It got him elected. So it worked. The fact that he probably knew he could not implement it is irrelevant. It’s not like he has to worry about credibility in a future election. At least not anymore.