2016 marks the beginning of a new year for Calgary, filled with new projects and plans to work towards a stronger and more connected community. As Mayor Nenshi put it, despite the economic uncertainty, there’s great potential in Calgary.
In Calgary’s 2015 Citizen satisfaction survey, a high rating of 80% of Calgarians conveyed satisfaction towards The City’s services, programs and customer services, a definite improvement from the 69% shown in the 2014 survey. Apart from previous City surveys, the 2015 survey decided to observe how citizens felt about affordable housing. Results presented that this topic is an important area for The City to invest and improve on. It has been observed that citizens seem more content in road maintenance, cleaning and snow removal. However, 36% of Calgarians still feel that “infrastructure, traffic or roads” still remains to be the most important issue in Calgary. Another 21% of Calgarians believe transit is the city’s most important issue. All of this data will fully be taken into consideration The City. A proposal for this year has been made to invest $2.5 billion of capital on building roads and bridges, more fire halls and parks recreation facilities, and improving transit, water services and flood mitigation.
The City council has decided to establish an economic resiliency fund under Mayor Nenshi’s proposition. The fund will use $30 million in budget savings and divide it into three main parts:
- $5 million would become designated as an emergency fund for city departments and non-profit organizations that are in tough times. This investment will support any non-profit organizations that are losing corporate donations and company sponsorships, in order to keep people employed and contribute important services for Calgarians. A recently conducted survey by the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations discovered that 47% of social agencies have seen decreases in their total revenue, as well, the other 53% were experiencing drops in donations.
- $10.6 million would go towards freezing transit fares and recreational pass prices at 2015 rates to allow citizens the ability to get around the city, stay active and have fun. Transit fares were planned to increase as of January 1st of 2016. Since the January adult transit passes have already been printed, the freeze won’t begin until February. As for the youth transit passes and regular single ticket rides, the fares will remain the same until next year in 2017. This also goes for leisure center admission tickets.
- $14.4 million would be dedicated to be used for affordable housing debuts. The budget would be split between construction use, matching funds from government orders and/or for operational assistance purposes to help those in need of housing.
On behalf of Calgary, Mayor Nenshi and The City of Calgary will continue to provide quality services to Calgarians, expand on how their doings will make it better for people to live and do business, and make the best out of 2016.
Sources:
Mayor Nenshi’s words for Calgary in 2016
2015 satisfaction survey
Economic resiliency fund
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