Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto said she’s expecting a tough but exciting year as the city works to navigate challenging budgetary conversations.
“I’m going to guess that we are going to be fairly conservative with that budget, which is going to have some impacts for sure. At the same time we are going to try to balance people’s desires and needs.”
She said creating new housing will continue to be a priority for the city, adding how Victoria is meeting the targets set by the province.
“The work that we did with the province around housing and supports gave us the chance to rely on the work that they’ve done to begin to do some reorganization and reclaimation of some of our more intensely challenging areas,” Alto said.
She described how the province and non-profits helped with the work to re-locate some people who were sheltering on Pandora Avenue or in parks.
“Those are the really tough tough social-service-based circumstances where traditionally it is not the role of the municipality and we get that, but at some point you have to figure out the way to work with the folks who’s responsibility it is to make sure those people get what they need.”
She also spoke a bit about engagement with public perception and the upcoming Crystal Pool referendum (which she said the city is neutral on).
Listen to the full conversation with Al Ferraby: