The mayor is the public face of city council. He chairs the meetings, works full-time and attends pretty much every event of significance in St. Albert.
But when it comes to trimming next year's near 8.97 per cent tax hike, Nolan Crouse is just one vote among seven.
Sometimes the votes don't go your way.
That was the case Saturday, when council approved $1 million to top up road maintenance next year. The extra spending — which city engineers did not request — will be funded with a mix of grants and tax dollars.
In the lead up to Saturday, council had managed to trim $245,000 worth of tax-funded projects from the 2009-11 capital budget. In theory, that's money they could have cut from the capital fund to reduce next year's tax increase by 0.4 per cent.
Coun. Len Bracko had other ideas when he said council should increase infrastructure spending by $1 million. With some $3 billion in infrastructure assets, the city doesn't put near enough dollars into maintenance, he argued.
Crouse, however, strongly objected to putting dollars into a pot "without any level of specifics."
But aside from Carol Watamaniuk, the mayor was alone on this one, and clearly frustrated.
Just minutes later, while defending a motion to cut $200,000 for a backup disaster recovery site, Crouse delivered a pointed speech.
"We must, sooner or later, make some tough decisions," he said. "We were at 8.9 per cent and any of the pay as you go (tax dollars used for capital projects) we freed up, we continue to find ways to spend."
He later added this lecture: "I need to remind council of our priorities. I clearly think we need to make tough calls."
Council begins debating staffing requests on Monday. They'll resume committee of the whole budget deliberations after the regular council session.
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