Here's what council had to say:
Coun. Roger Lemieux
"My first thoughts are I'm pleased," he said. "Just look around you, our society is having increases left, right and centre. Energy prices are going up. We're not immune, as a municipality, to those increases."
Lemieux said other municipalities are worse off than St. Albert, according to feedback from municipal peers at the recent Alberta Urban Municipalities Association convention.
"Medicine Hat, Calgary, Lethbridge — everybody was talking about double digits. As a matter of fact, places like Beaumont and Fort Saskatchewan are closing in on 15 per cent. Now, this is what the councillors are saying … they might find it will go down. We know for a fact Edmonton will be in double digits."
Lemieux, who celebrated the birth of his ninth grandchild on Thanksgiving Day, said he's sensitive to the plight of seniors and families on limited income.
"Our provincial and federal governments have to come to their rescue. They're the people that built this country. They're our fathers and grandfathers."
Coun. Len Bracko
"This is what council asked (administration) to do, to come up with … an operating budget that keeps us operating at the same level of service that we had in 2008, with minimum increases. What we need to emphasize is the municipal inflation factor, compared to the (consumer price index)."
"In the city we have certain fixed costs — the agreements have been worked out. The municipal inflation costs hit us harder. That has to be looked at carefully."
Bracko said most members of the public understand the cost pressures municipalities are under. Council must emphasize how budgeting practices have "come from the dark ages" in recent years.
"We have our 100-year utility plan, we have our 10-year capital plans. we have our three-year budget plan and everything feeds into it … we're very well set up compared to 20 years ago. We're very transparent with it."
Coun. Gareth Jones
"This is just a sketch," he said of the figures released with the budget preview. "There's a lot of paint to go on it yet."
Like others on council, Jones found it difficult to comment on the proposed increases without know more about the details.
"Until we start plowing through the details, I don't know really how to comment about it. It still seems a little high to me. Until we see the details I don't know what to say."
Jones said it will be interesting to hear the public's initial comments at Saturday's mall visit in St. Albert Centre.
"Even during election time, one of the major concerns raised by people was the tax increases. Going into the three-year budget they're obviously going to be very concerned. I'm one of them that's going to be very concerned as well, just from a citizen point of view."
"I can understand the problems everybody's facing right now — personal, business-wise or the city. Costs have gone up and there's not much we can do about that. Those are external costs that we do not have any control over. Those kind of costs are the ones that we have to look at closely. I don't know what we can do to adjust that."
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