Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 23/02) - It's official: Yellowknife City Council will not raise taxes this year.

However, the price for other services will increase. Costs for parking, building permits, ambulance service and garbage disposal will all rise.

Council unanimously passed the 2002 budget at a special meeting Monday night.

The total operating and capital budgets works out to about $43.5 million. Ratepayers will have to vote later in the year on about $1.6 million in road and sewer expenditures, which will be financed from a debenture if passed.

"It's certainly a liveable budget," said Coun. Alan Woytuik. "I would have preferred to see more focus on reducing expenditures rather than decreasing revenues. (And) there's still an increase in the solid waste levy. As far as I'm concerned, a levy is a tax by another name. So we did get a tax increase."

Councillors voted on four motions at the 90-minute meeting. Mayor Gord Van Tighem cast the tie-breaking vote on three of them.

Council voted to decrease the size of the city's contingency fund from $200,000 to $176,400, cut publication of "Skyline," make five per cent across-the-board cuts to the mayor's and council budget, and incrementally increase the cost of building permits by 20 per cent over the next three years: 10 per cent in 2002 and five per cent in the two following years.

The fee hike will give the city an estimated extra $25,000 in 2002.

Van Tighem disagreed with accusations from other members of council that raising building fees would make the city look unfriendly to development.

"We provide a building inspection service and it's a requirement that that service keep pace with the anticipated increase in buildings," he said.

Royal Homes owner Tony Chang said the increase won't affect developers.

"It's not going to stop development because the developer is not going to absorb that - they'll just pass it on to the consumer," he said. The city also resuscitated the dive rescue program, which they originally planned to cut, although not with their own funds. In a last-ditch effort to save the program, chief coroner Percy Kinney secured $14,000 in funding from the NWT Emergency Measures Organization through a federal search and rescue grant.

"By securing funding this year, that buys us some time to figure out how we can perhaps find ways to raise money for the future," said Kinney.

Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce president Dave McPherson opposed the parking fee increase, saying "it's certainly not going to encourage people to go downtown."

But he complimented council on constructing a balanced budget.

"They did a good job," he said.

"They had some difficult decisions to make, and if they managed to come up with cost savings and budget reductions without raising taxes, then I have to give them credit for that."