Belleville city council has approved its capital budget with no changes to staff’s recommendations.
The budget totals almost $60 million, much lower than last year’s $92 million.
To pay for the 105 projects in the budget, $17.2 million will be borrowed but the city is still well within its debt limits whereby no more than 12% of the city’s operating budget can be used to pay debt principal and interest annually. This budget approval sees the city paying just 8.9% of last year’s operating budget on debt servicing.
The capital budget will not have any effect on residents’ tax levy, however, if the $17.2 million had not been borrowed it would have meant a 3.9% tax increase.
The budget features 12 road reconstruction, roadside, and bridge projects, nine combined road and water/sewer projects, and various parks projects.
At Thursday’s special council meeting a presentation was made by Police Chief Mike Callaghan who explained the over $1.3 million capital budget for the police service. Included in the budget are 92 new state of the art tasers (one per front line officer) at a cost of $331,000, a replacement drone at almost $19,000, a replacement closed-circuit television system at the intersection of Bell Boulevard and North Front Street at a cost of close to $8,000 and 12 replacement cameras for the Downtown District costing over $25,000.
When discussing the cameras, Chief Callagan said he’d really like to see cameras installed at all entrances/exits to the city. “If we had cameras in this those locations we would have arrested suspects involved in July’s Northway Lounge shooting a lot sooner than we did.”
A 30-year-old Toronto man was eventually charged with second degree murder after that incident.
Here are a few of the major or unique items and projects included in the capital budget:
Two electric zambonis will be purchased for use at the CAA Arena for a total of half a million dollars. One hundred thousand dollars of that total is for the extension of electrical service around the ice pads.
Also $2 million is in the budget for various renewal projects at the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre.
Four million dollars has been earmarked for detailed design and partial construction of water/sewer infrastructure on the former fairgrounds property in the city’s west end. Also to be done is the construction of an access road to the site.
Two million dollars has been set aside for the continued development of Hillcrest Park, including the construction of two basketball courts, eight pickleball courts, a skate dot, and the completion of lighting installation.
Mary Anne Sills Park Field 2 will see its turf replaced this year at a cost of $680,000.
A trash drone, an item that drew some interest from council, will be purchased for $120,000. The self-guided drone will pick up trash from the water’s surface at Meyers Pier and Victoria Harbour.
Also, $750,000 is in the budget for a functional plan to be created to present future options for the use of Meyers Pier after the current structure, which is in rough shape, is replaced. And in the total is an environmental assessment, something that must be done before any major work can be done on it.
See the entire capital budget here.
Council will decide its 2023 operating budget in the coming weeks.
