The Blog section of this website provides Pickering residents with access to Councillor O’Connell’s informal thoughts on various issues and developments, as well as any pertinent news information.

Blog posts are organized from the most recent date of issue to least recent date of issue.

 
 

Welcome to JenniferOConnell.ca!

Welcome to my new website! This site was designed not as a way to simply showcase another politician, however it was designed as an interactive tool for the residents of Pickering. Something important to me in the creation of this site was that I wanted it to be user friendly and it needed to be user friendly for the very diverse community within Pickering.

I am extremely excited about JenniferOConnell.ca, I love how easy it is to navigate through the different pages. Each page is designed to provide information to the user, whether it’s through the Issues and Legislation page, the Links page or even the Calendar page that lets you know where I am in the community.

The overall feeling that I wanted to express with this website is that I am not your typical politician. I believe I am a new generation of political thinking and my degree in Political Science from the University of Toronto is the tool that allows me to implement this new era of political representation.

My favourite part of my website is this Blog section. My blogs are my informal thoughts and opinions, almost like diary entries. I invite all of you to visit my site regularly and read my blogs. If you have any comments to add to the blog section please feel free to email me and I will be happy to post them for all to read and comment on.

I want this site to be an interactive tool that is thought provoking and gets residents talking about important issues. Enjoy!

- Jennifer

8.79% Tax increase in the City of Pickering

Taxes are something that is always a contentious issue, however the 2007 City of Pickering budget that gave rise to an 8.79% tax increase has the whole GTA talking.

This increase in my opinion was due to a heavy reliance on development and poor long term planning. Because of this I was the only Councillor who did not support this budget and tax increase. I did support a number of the projects within the budget, however I felt that we could have done better at reducing our operating costs. With 0.8% growth the City of Pickering does not have too much going on right now so I found it hard to justify why we are spending the same as past years.

I agree with my fellow Councillors that this tax increase not only has to do with the City’s financial responsibilities but we have had to deal with provincial downloading of services to the municipalities. A good example to highlight provincial downloading is with the recent closure of the Adelaide House, a women’s shelter in the Durham Region. Social services such as this shelter are under the jurisdiction of the Province, yet residents and this local government constantly have to give money in order for their doors to remain open, however in this case unless the Provincial Government commits to long-term funding this shelter will not be able to reopen for longer than one year.

I agree that a portion of our financial problems come from provincial downloading, however this is not the only reason. As I mentioned above the City of Pickering relies so heavily on new growth, this is bad business because eventually every municipality will run out of land.

This along with Pickering's aging infrastructure and the fact that previous Councils for a number of years did not increase taxes even to the point of inflation because it was good for their political careers, and now we are playing catch up. Therefore I can understand everyone’s frustration with regards to Pickering's 8.79% tax increase, I too am frustrated.

Despite the fact that Pickering's increase was so high this year, you should know that Pickering residents still pay less in taxes than most Durham municipalities including Ajax. This is something that is often left out of the media and most residents have no idea how much residents in other municipalities are actually paying. This does not mean that I support the 8.79% increase.

Over the next four years during my time on Council I will be working hard to change the way Pickering does business and ensure that this City becomes more financially sustainable, and that we no longer rely so heavily on the residential tax base. I want to help ensure that hard working families can afford to remain in Pickering and that we leave future generations a legacy we can be proud of.

- Jennifer