City council recently opened its doors and allowed the public to view the drafted operating budget for 2012-2014.

The open house, held Nov. 1-3 at City Hall, allowed Lethbridge residents to view the budget and have their questions answered by members of city council.

 “We do it every time we do massive projects,” says Jeff Carlson, a city alderman. “The three-year operating budget is certainly the largest we do.”

The city has a budget of $281 million to work with, and allowing the community in gives city council a chance to know whether or not they’re representing what city residents want.

“We (city council) always like to get the temperature of the community, to find out where they would like us to focus the efforts on,” says Carlson. “This is just a chance for people to come in and say yes or no.”

Some of the ideas include budget reduction initiatives like snow removal and ice control.

Over the past three years the winter weather has resulted in a budget overrun of $1.6 million. By purchasing a second snow blower, city council hopes to lower the budget and maintain the same level of service.

Another initiative is the 60-minute bus service to Copperwood and Sunridge.

“Ridership numbers aren’t very high in some of the newer communities,” explains Carlson. This initiative will actually be a reduction in services.

“Transit has come back to us and told us we’re running empty busses. Until transit numbers get large enough to warrant full services were trying to cut back a bit.”

The operating budget is available for public viewing on the city of Lethbridge website. Budget deliberations will be taking place from Nov. 21-25 with budget approval on Nov. 28.