photo by Curtis Galbraith

By Liam Verster

budget

Grande Prairie Council is taking public input for the 2020 budget

Oct 9, 2019 | 10:23 AM

The City of Grande Prairie held a drop-in budget consultation on Tuesday, October 8, at the Eastlink Centre, to hear from the public on how they believe the city should spend its money in the 2020 City Budget.

Mayor Bill Given says the turnout on Tuesday was fairly low, but over the past couple of months, Council has received hundreds of online submissions with ideas on how to spend the city’s money. Given says all public input helps determine the priorities the city should focus on.

“I think it would be safe to say that people continue to want Council to focus on core infrastructure, people continue to want Council to focus on providing a safe community. People really appreciate our parks and open spaces and want to see them maintained well, and of course, people want to see all of that a low tax rate,” he said. “So those are the kinds of things we are hearing from the community, and those are the kinds of things we’ll be challenged to deal with in the budget.”

Given says City Administration has been working on the budget for the past few months, and the public’s input will be collected and reviewed by Administration before it’s presented to Council.

“We will obviously be on the lookout, and administration will be on the lookout, for any specific ideas or recommendations that people have, and obviously we’ll explore them. But overall, I think the goal here is for Council is to take the temperature of the community, so that we can have it front and centre in our minds when we present the budget in mid-November.”

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Given says they have been trying to reach more of the public in this budget consultation process, and they are still accepting input on their website until October 9 at midnight.

Council will begin deliberations on the budget on November 13.