Calgarians discuss the City's budget woes at a random round table meeting.

CALGARY, Alberta – 2P News has recently held several open houses in the Calgary metro area regarding the City of Calgary’s budget crisis. Invitees were chosen by a thorough vetting process including throwing darts at old Christmas party pictures and tossing Rolodex cards down stairways in the Bow Tower, then choosing the people whose cards fell the furthest. This process resulted in almost 43 registered and certifiable professionals (1 had to bow out for a birthday party, so we only managed 42) in 3 sessions to talk about the budget and what council could do to make it fair and equitable.

This was an open discussion over what was obviously a few too many beverages, but here’s a list of the top 10 ideas.  Several of these ideas were also approved by other patrons of the establishments that happened to be within earshot of the idiocy.

  1. Mid level Managers and higher take a 40% pay cut, frozen for 5 years, and attend mandatory Life With Ambition seminars to help improve their complacency issues.
  2. Front-line civil employees take a 5% pay cut, and smile for a change when dealing with the public. If they smile they get a bonus of 0.0005% per smile.
  3. Emergency First Responders such as fire, police, and ambulance, will deliver Skip the Dishes meals at every opportunity, as planned by a special dispatch team. The proceeds of the deliveries will fund their shortfall and no cuts will be required.
  4. Calgary Board of Education staff will take a 20% pay cut, although teachers can work back 20% and an additional 5% cutting lawns and doing yard work in city parks through the summer. Teachers-In-Training will also be contracted through the summer to clean up wildlife feces along the river pathways, which should eliminate entitlement issues before they become full-time union staff.
  5. There will be free admission to all city operated swimming pools to individuals that bring their own 1 Liter reusable bottle of water to add to the pool upon entry. If you bring a container with 50g of swimming pool chlorine granules, your kids can swim too.
  6. City Transit will use the Ass Method to convert smaller buses and vans away from fossil fuels and converted to Donkey Pull. This will save fuel, and ultimately bring meaning to many useless asses’ lives.
  7. WalMart stores within city limits will become designated food banks. These to-be-named WalBanks can be accessed using credit-coupons handed out on Donkey Buses.
  8. Property taxes in the city, regardless of commercial or residential, will be decided based on the owners’ online interviews with a newly designed AI, “The InterNensh”, which will process values based on likability and honesty.  If you’re a lying asshole your taxes go up. If you’re an nice, honest person, you might be alright.
  9. Recycling and Waste Management responsibility and costs will be offloaded to the municipality of Okotoks. Why? Because everyone hates Okotoks.
  10. Residential property taxes will be offset by a shoveling credit. An Apple iShovel can be purchased from the city for $2300, and will record the number of driveways and footage of sidewalks you shovel, and credit your property taxes accordingly. $5 per driveway, $1 per foot, per day, respectively. It’ll make Snow Angels seem like greedy little heathens.

Well, there you have it… the top 10 budget recommendations decided by a committee of random Calgarians. Do you have some ideas of your own (or ones that belong to somebody else)? If so, please share them with us.

Thanks,
2P News Staff

2 COMMENTS

  1. True. Back in 1980 when us 4 geologists went for noon walks, when we saw some old street bum with a shopping cart loaded with bottles we would start laughing “Hey, that guys only 30 but he used to be an oil and gas geologist.

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