Concerns about potential cuts to parks services dominated a special city council meeting on the proposed 2011 budget held Thursday evening (December 2).

About 20 speakers addressed city council members during a public feedback session, voicing their concerns about reductions in parks services, library budget constraints and a tax shift from business owners to residential property owners.

According to budget documents, $13.4 million in adjustments for city departments and boards have been proposed for 2011 to balance the budget with a two percent property tax increase. The fourth year of a tax shift policy will see an additional two percent tax increase for residential property owners. Utility rates and certain revenues such as parking metres will also be increased.

“The budget’s strained all around,” Mayor Gregor Robertson told the Straight following the council meeting. “It hasn’t got a whole lot easier from the last couple years, with the recession. So we’re trying to keep the property tax increase down to around two percent. There is pressure on all departments.”

Park board chair Aaron Jasper asked city council to reconsider the $1 million savings target it has been asked to meet. The parks board is considering closing some public washrooms and reducing cleaning at others in order to save $300,000.

“We’ve reached the tipping point,” Jasper told the Straight following the budget discussions.

“We need some more money—a million dollars is just too much....We’re pleading with them to re-evaluate that target.”

David Sexton, the president of the Renfrew Park Resident's Association, spoke to Vancouver city council about the potential impacts of the 2011 budget on community centres.

But Jasper said he’s hopeful after addressing city council Thursday night that the numbers will be re-evaluated.

“I was pleased to at least in my assessment get a response from the chair of the finance committee, Councillor Raymond Louie, that they are interested in working with us, with staff, to see if we can address some of those concerns,” he said. “So I think it wasn’t a slammed door in my face, it was the door was opened.”

Robertson said the city will continue to look at budget details.

“We’re going to continue to work on that, and I know city staff and park board staff will work on trying to find some solutions to the challenges, particularly with washrooms. I don’t think anyone wants to see washrooms closing, but hopefully we can find more money in the budget and move things around to prevent that happening,” he told the Straight.

Library board chair Joan Andersen told council the board’s 1.7 percent increase in the proposed budget is “among the lowest increases to any of the areas in the city” and that it’s $1.38 million short of what is needed to maintain library services and to open the new Hillcrest branch later this year.

Andersen asked council to consider requests to identify the $260,000 she said is necessary to open the Hillcrest library branch, and to find $164,600 to restore hours that were cut at five branches in March 2010.

Vancouver resident Gary Jarvis, who works as a library shelver part-time, said the reduction in library services at some branches "is damaging to the patrons who use those libraries, and it is also having a negative impact on the morale of staff who work in those libraries."

Vancouver resident Gary Jarvis, a part-time library shelver, raised concerns to city council about funding constraints for library branches.

Many speakers voiced their concerns about the impact of the tax shift from business to residential property owners, a policy made by the previous Non-Partisan Association administration in 2008.

“While I respect your platform decision in maintaining the shift, my local does not support it in its current form,” said Paul Faoro, the president of CUPE Local 15.

“We certainly would like to work with this council to actually have a shift that actually supports locally based, independent business, what I describe as the mom and pop type businesses....We find it offensive that multinational companies are actually getting tax relief on the backs of the residents of the city," Faoro told council.

Brent Granby blamed the potential cuts to park board services on the tax shift policy.

“Because the city is pursuing that policy, it’s limiting their ability to pay the different boards in the city, and it’s forcing them to do cuts,” he said. “If you’re getting to the point where you’re actually cutting core services at parks board, doing it on little evidence doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.”

City hall staff will now work on “fine tuning” budget details before it goes to a final vote later this month, said Robertson.