Yellowknife (Dec 22/04) - The irony wasn't lost on one city councillor who witnessed two of his colleagues vote down the 2004 0.7 per cent tax increase, but opted for more than double that percentage next year.

In an effort to shrink a proposed tax increase next year, city council has voted to scrap the two-year-old environmental co-ordinator position.

Last year's adamant tax cutters, Couns. Alan Woytuik and Dave McCann, voted with the majority Monday night to accept a 2.07 per cent property tax increase for 2005, while service spending booster Coun. Kevin O'Reilly bitterly rejected it.

"This will be the first budget I've had to vote against," said O'Reilly, of his eight years on council.

"I describe this as an anti-environment budget, and I'll continue to do so."

Only Coun. Mark Heyck joined O'Reilly in a final protest vote against the majority's aim to slim down the earlier projected tax increase of 2.85 per cent by, among other things, scrapping the city's two-year-old environmental waste co-ordinator's position.

The budget projects revenues of $38.8 million with expenditures in excess of $38.4 million.

In an interview conducted last Thursday - the day after the job was put on the chopping block - O'Reilly angrily denounced Woytuik, who in his view, was at least partially responsible for bringing the city's recycling efforts back into the "dark ages."

"For someone like Coun. Woytuik, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: 'I don't agree with recycling in the first place, and I'm going to make sure it doesn't work, because I'm not going to give it any money,'" said O'Reilly.

Woytuik, on the other hand, told council and the small band of environmentalists gathered at City Hall that the numbers didn't make any sense.

He pointed to performance indicators that showed the percentage of garbage going to the dump that is being recycled is actually going down -- from 5.8 per cent in 2003 to 4.8 per cent this year, and further still next year.

"We may be holding the line or maybe even slightly increasing the amount we're recycling, but as a percentage of the garbage being produced, (the percentage recycled) is going down," said Woytuik.

Coun. Bob Brooks set aim on O'Reilly, Monday night, who he accused of fanning the flames among environmental activists, while failing to disclose that spending on recycling was actually going up next year by $35,000.

While Brooks didn't mention O'Reilly by name, he was clearly the intended target - especially after he handed the media copies of his statement with O'Reilly's name thinly scratched out with ink.

He argued that although the co-ordinator's position was being cut, another job was being created to recycle backlogged trash at the dump, and that council voted for four additional recycling bins.

"The majority of council also agreed and that motion was successful," said Brooks.

Efforts directionless

Coun. Wendy Bisaro said, however, that by cutting the environmental co-ordinator job, city recycling efforts will be directionless.

She pointed to a number of imminent challenges: the close-to-capacity dump; and city plans to switch from a flat-rate solid waste levy next year to a user-pay system that will penalize people who throw out more than their yet-undetermined quota of trash.

"Everyone else in the world is going towards the protection of the environment," said Bisaro.

"Yellowknife isn't. We have two committees established that won't have staff support. The user pay, who's going to monitor that program?"

Bisaro also attempted to cut in half a 25 per cent fare increase for city transit.

She managed a split-vote, but Mayor Gord Van Tighem voted her motion down. As it stands, adult fares for the bus will going up to $2.50, April 1.

Van Tighem was involved in another tiebreaker later on, when Coun. Doug Witty attempted to pass a motion that would have brought next year's tax increase down to 0.92 per cent by transferring $185,000 in formula funding into capital long-term debt.

Van Tighem called it an "excellent idea," but stopped short of voting for it. "The thing I've found is if we move without analysis of the thing, it gets us into trouble."

* Also see Collect your own trash, page A12