In the community section of this website is dedicated to informing Pickering residents of the issues Councillor O’Connell supports and the legislation she is working to have implemented. Issues and legislation appear as threads (often accompanied with downloads and related links) organized from the most recent date of issue to least recent date of issue.
 


 
 

Pickering Budget
April 2nd, 2007

Councillor O’Connell was in full support for the projects scheduled in this year’s budget, such as the long overdue construction of a sidewalk on Sheppard Ave. However, this is a challenging time for the City of Pickering. The City faces a situation where we have a 0.8% growth increase and a huge reliance on the residential tax base. “We are relying so heavily on new development, yet a majority (72%) of our land is locked in legislation. We cannot rely so heavily on the residential tax base, it is not economically sustainable and it is frankly bad business.”

Councillor O’Connell raised a number of questions during the budget meetings and she felt that we should not be budgeting based on the previous budgeted amounts, instead we should be basing our budget on the actual amount that was spent in previous years unless an increase can be justified. “We are not in an easy situation, and I feel we must be exceptionally frugal this year under these circumstances. I have a hard time asking the taxpayers to pay for these “what if” situations when we haven’t needed these increases in the last number of years and we have unique financial restraints which limit our justification to continue our spending in the same way as previous years.” Councillor O’Connell did not support the 8.79% tax increase.

Please click the following link to read more on the issue:
Council approves 8.79-per cent tax - Apr 3, 2007 By Kristen Calis

Click here to download Councillor O’Connell’s notes on the 2007 Pickering Budget