The city of Moncton is considering way of offering additional financial relief for residents and local businesses.
City Manager Marc Landry says they consulted with municipalities across the country on their approach.
Landry says they are looking at ways to fill the gap left by existing federal and provincial relief efforts.
He noted, however, that the city only gets about 10 cents from every tax dollar and the options must fit within the budget.
One recommendation is to waive monthly parking parking until April 30th, but City engineer Jack Macdonald says this will not apply to the Moncton hospital parking lot.
“The considerations there is that we actually continue it. The reason we recommend doing that there is turn over, the reason we have meters in the down town is turn over. If you don’t have a meter process in place what happens is people are there all day,” he says.
Other recommendations waiving sidewalk patio fees, and efforts to reduce the impact on Farmers Market vendors.
The financial impact by COVID-19 in the City of Moncton will be in the millions of dollars.
Two scenarios of the impact were presented last night at Moncton City Council.
If restrictions are lifted by June 1st, the city will be left with a $1.7 million deficit. If they are in place until September 1st, it’ll mean a $3.5 million deficit.
