CALGARY — Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas admits the city “cut corners” and neglected water infrastructure for years as Calgarians are facing potentially significant increases in their water bills.Farkas told a crowd of over 2,000 people at the Calgary Economic Development’s 2027 Economic Outlook event on Tuesday that the city “put off work, I put off work.”Farkas served as a Calgary city councillor from 2017 to 2021.He now believes some of the decisions made during that time contributed to infrastructure maintenance being deferred.“As your mayor, I am accountable for that because maintenance was neglected,” he said in his speech.“Problems piled up, and then Bearspaw failed, and then it failed again, exploding for over a week and progressing up a hill. We came dangerously close to firefighters not having enough water in a city of nearly two million people to fight fires, and that should never, that must not ever happen here again in Calgary.”On Monday, city council’s executive committee endorsed a plan that would see the city substantially increase utility rates over the next four years to pay for Calgary’s water system..Farkas says 'deranged' nationalists will blame Trudeau for lost socks and unbalanced hotdog-to-bun ratios .The committee voted 8-2 to endorse average annual increases of 19.9% for drinking water, 15.2% for wastewater and 5.8% for stormwater services between 2027 and 2030.Under the proposal, the monthly bill for a typical residential customer would climb from $119.21 at present to $206.94 by 2030 — an increase of about $88 per month, or roughly 74%.“It would be easier for me politically to tell you that everything is fine, but it isn't,” Farkas said.“After a ten-year freeze, water bills need to increase. I know that people will be disappointed, but I also believe that you deserve a mayor who takes ownership, who tells you what things actually cost, even when the answer is unpopular.”On Monday, Farkas also called on the Alberta government to help shoulder the cost.“It’s a regional provincial infrastructure that we provide, serving two million residents and there’s definitely a business case for the province to step in and help support us,” Farkas said.In his Tuesday speech, Farkas said Calgary and neighbouring Chestermere, Airdrie, and Tsuut’ina Nation are expected to reach a combined population of two million people later this year and argued the city’s infrastructure has failed to keep pace with that growth.“We’re going after the leaks. We’re replacing what is worn out. We’re catching up on that neglected work,” Farkas said.“We are done cutting corners, and we’re going to build the water system that a city of two million people needs.”
