Mayors speak out against agglo tax hikes

Mayors of de-merged cities are upset that Montreal's agglomeration council has downloaded a significant amount of its fiscal burden on their cities after Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay and the city's executive-committee finance guru Alan DeSousa announced a 12.6-per-cent increase in agglomeration taxes last Wednesday. Dollard des Ormeaux mayor Ed Janiszewski said Tremblay's freeze of residential property taxes over the last few years finally caught up with him Ð and with West Island taxpayers. "I told him years ago he could never freeze taxes, but he got a vacation with the pension surplus for a while, and now that (the surplus) is gone, he's got problems. What a surprise." Janiszewski said Dollard residents will face about a six-per-cent increase on average from last year because he plans not to raise Dollard's residential mill rate. "We've made a preliminary decision that our budget will have zero tax increase for residents, and because the agglo rate is up about 12 per cent, it will be a roughly six-per-cent increase," he added. Janiszewski said really, though, it's not Tremblay who's ultimately to blame for the hikes Ð it's Quebec Premier Jean Charest, whose de-merger bill set things up in the mega-city's favour, and effectively gave the West Island taxation without representation. "We could refuse to pay it, but we'd all lose our homes," he said. "And it's our own fault because we keep voting Liberal Ð because we're afraid of the (PQ). Maybe it's time we change our idea and start voting for the PQ," he continued. For his part, Montreal executive-committee responsible for finance Alan DeSousa said that the end of the tax freeze doesn't mean West Islanders are getting fleeced Ð for instance, of the $60 million extra being added to the Montreal Transit Corporation's 2010 budget comes from a tax on downtown parking spots. "We've stepped up to the plate, and we've added to the Montreal Transit Corp's budget, bringing it to about $390 million, and West Islanders will soon see that benefit soon," DeSousa said, adding that West Island mayors had lots of warning that the 2010 Montreal budget was going to be a "tough" one. "We think it's a fair budget in tough economic times. We've cut back drastically on the number of capital projects this year so we can restructure the bidding process and we've committed $22.5 million to active modes of mass transit, such as bicycle and pedestrian paths," he said. Beaconsfield will table its budget next week, but mayor David Pollock said there will have to be an increase in residential taxes because the city's commitment to the agglomeration council has gone up 14 per cent. "We are still reviewing the budget to try to ensure the tax burden is as low as possible. For the 50 per cent of the taxes that stay in Beaconsfield, we are not increasing spending at all," he said, adding Montreal's profligate spending has sent shared-services costs through the roof. "From our perspective, we see that the costs for a lot of the shared services -- fire, police, public transit Ð have risen three times beyond the rate of inflation, and I would think we need the assistance of Quebec City to ensure that not only do we pay our fair share and that management practices are sound, but that the surrounding off-island municipalities (pay their faire share) as well."