The City of Belleville was looking at a seven-plus per cent tax increase, but they were able to whittle that down to under four per cent.
Monday morning on the Lorne Brooker Show, former Ontario Liberal candidate Emily Leneveu and former Belleville mayor Ross McDougall discussed Mayor Neil Ellis’s election promise to have a zero per cent tax increase in his first full year in office.
Leneveu says she is proud of what council was able to accomplish, especially during tough times.
“I think the inflation piece is a really important one. That’s one that everyone has to consider at any level of government. I’m really proud of what council was able to do to mitigate these costs as much as possible, or as much as they were able.”
Ross McDougall says messaging has to be key and clean during an election campaign.
“People like voting for mayors that say zero. It’s just standard stuff for politicians in elections to say things that are aspirational, that don’t actually ever happen and they probably don’t think they will.”
“There’s a difference between having a platform and getting in and having to do it, and it’s harder.”
Lenevue says the one benefit to municipal politics is that it is not party politics.
“At the municipal level though I think there is a little bit more leniency and ways of having those aspirational moments. When you are running provincially or federally, you kind of have to toe the party line, you have to stick behind a platform.”
McDougall says Ellis is not the first politician to say something aspirational that did not happen and he will not be the last.
