THUNDER BAY -- It took exactly an hour and two minutes before resentment over the proposed Thunder Bay Event and Convention Centre arose at an open mike budget meeting on Tuesday night.
It kicked off a shift in the meeting's direction that made infrastructure concerns the focus of public feedback through most of its second hour.
Budget chairman and Coun. Pullia told the crowd the city has spent $1.5 million of the total $4 million expended on planning the event centre and the Renew Thunder Bay Fund still contains between $21 million and $22 million set aside for the project, should senior levels of government introduce programs to fund it.
"The event centre is still an issue, still percolating," said Pullia, who rolled up his sleeves to host the event.
"People are concerned we’re spending the money where it’s not needed and it’s not affordable. A tax increase of four per cent-plus is not sustainable."
He repeated his ambition to bring the tax levy down from administration's starting point of 4.4 per cent to three per cent. The city had zero growth over 2016, but Pullia said if even one per cent growth occurs over 2017, the tax levy could rise by as little as two per cent the following year.
Pullia believes the 2017 budget will begin to achieve permanent solutions to legal, insurance and policing costs that caused a $3-million reduction to operations and capital plans in September to cover most of this year's negative budget variance. He did recognize, however, public concerns over deferred capital spending, pointing out savings could arise from moving the end of the capital budget year to December.
"There was a sense we're cutting back on capital to save the operational side. I think they're partly right," he said.
"We have not cut back, we've slowed down. There was a huge growth in the last four or five years. When you look at the trend, we're investing a tremendous amount of money -- almost $40 million a year -- in capital."
Some advised Pullia and city administration against spending more on spread --- Dean Stamler pointed to the Ontario Municpal Benchmarking Initiative, which shows Thunder Bay not only has among the highest lane kilometres per capita, but it also has among the lowest kilometres traveled per capita.
Mark Smith, the city's development services general manager, attributed urban sprawl to a combination of the city's history and market demand for single detached dwellings. Although changes may come to zoning bylaws regarding residential development, he pointed out neighbours frequently object when developers propose any other type of housing.
"The question was asked, how long will it take us to turn that around," Smith said in response to urban sprawl.
"Unfortunately, the answer is it will take a very, very, very long time and that’s a function how much road we have and how slowly we’re growing."
Although Stamler credited administration as "smart" people who "understand the issues," he didn't buy Smith's response.
"I heard it's driven by market forces but my objection to that is, market forces can be affected by proper legislation, good bylaws. We can make rules to prevent ourselves from going further into the red. We can prevent the market from doing things that shoot us in the foot," Stamler said.
"I don't buy that everybody wants to live further and further away from the cores. I don't and I'm sure there are many people like me who want to live closer to the services I use."
Other issues raised included planning for Thunder Bay's aging population, the city's role in medical recruitment, and the impact of industrial property assessment on the budget process.
A proposed budget will be available to the public on Jan. 23, 2017 and council will welcome more deputations on Jan. 31. Council will review the budget from Feb. 2 to Feb. 15 and final approval is scheduled to fall on Feb. 21.
