It was the fourth day of budget deliberation and it wasn’t difficult to tell everyone had enough gabfest over how much Calgarians should be paying on their property taxes next year.
The dynamics in council has changed, since the last council, obviously because there are new people, there are rookies and some of the veterans no longer have their powerful allies.
They finished deliberations just before noon.
Since Tuesday, the mayor has been saying it’s going to be done soon.
He predicted it would be over Tuesday night.
It spilled onto Wednesday.
On Wednesday, he said it’s going to be done, even if they go over time.
Nobody wanted to go over time Wednesday.
It spilled onto Thursday and again the mayor said they’d make sure it’s done before noon.
It almost didn’t get over at noon, as motion arising, after motion arising piled on the chamber desk.
Some motions were rejected, because they had nothing to do with the budget.
Flouride debate anyone?
Majority said, “Nah!”
“Let’s do it some other time.”
The media covering the budget thinned.
Only the regulars were left.
There were more people in the booth though, some were visiting, others were the new regulars.
Expletives were heard, ridiculing attempts at filibustering.
There’s no such thing as filibustering at city hall.
Politicians aren’t really allowed to gab as much as they wanted, because the mayor will put a kibosh to that.
So, at exactly noon, the mayor was doing a scrum on the budget.
He was all smile, although he didn’t get what he exactly wanted.
Not yet.
He promises, he’ll continue the fight for a much lower tax.
We’ll see what happens next.
He’s now a prince you know.
Dec 2, 2010
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