Sudbury residents weigh in on city spending

Sudbury city council received suggestions at its Tuesday night meeting on where to spend tax dollars in the coming year from plowing more sidewalks to removing fluoride from the city's drinking water.

An extra $213,000 for public transit and $250,000 to study lake pollution were also among the proposals.

City councillor and budget chief Terry Kett thanked residents for their ideas, but added:

"You should have to just accept that there's also a cost to these very, very good ideas. And our running total tonight is $7.24 million."

Kett pointed out that, compared with similar-sized cities in Ontario, taxes in Greater Sudbury are quite low and many in the city want to keep it that way.

But Denise Truax from the Prise de Parole publishing house believes there's room in the tight city budget for more arts money.

"There will always be issues with sewers and roads," she said. "There will always be questions with where to spend the money. We need to ask. We need to make the city of Sudbury understand that it needs to be a priority, right up there."

The city's arts groups banded together under the name of the Creative Consortium to ask for 250-thousand dollars more in cultural grants.

Sudbury city council will begin holding its annual budget deliberations in the fall.