Say No to 0%

On Thursday, February 9th, London’s City Council put forward a number of substantial budget cuts, with the goal of reaching a zero percent tax increase for 2012. Today at the UnLab, a group of citizens met to share information and discuss the cuts. There were three cuts that the group focused on:

1. Reducing the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund by 1 million dollars. Here is an excellent post summarizing the impact of the cut.

2. Diverting 1.3 million dollars from the city’s strategic reserve funds to the current budget.

3. Reducing  funding for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) budget by $500000

The complete list of cuts can be found here:

How councilors voted. http://www.london.ca/Newsroom/PDFs/BListVote.pdf

Most of votes to approve these cuts were passed by one vote, 8-7.
Council will meet on Tuesday, February 21st to give final approval to the budget. That will be the last opportunity for any of the proposed cuts to be changed or reversed. You have the chance, over the next 8 days, to add your input to the final budget.

-Talk with your friends and neighbors about the proposed cuts and their effect on London.
-email city council and let them know what you think of the proposed cuts. These are the email addresses for the members of city council :

bpolhill@london.ca
barmstro@london.ca
jswan@london.ca
sorser@london.ca
jbaechle@london.ca
nbransco@london.ca
mbrown@london.ca
phubert@london.ca
dhenders@london.ca
pvanmeer@london.ca
dbrown@london.ca
husher@london.ca
jbryant@london.ca
sawhite@london.ca
jfontana@london.ca

Indicate which ward you are in in your letter.
*make sure to cc: csaunder@london.ca and request that your email be included in the agenda.

Other resources:

Local budget app  – Make the cut  http://zoeandgavin.com/makethecut/
James Shelley’s  Municipal Taxation Increase Request  http://jamesshelley.net/MTIR1.pdf

A survey from Councillor Hubert