Bell: 20.2 per cent Calgary property tax hike. What the heck is going on?

Calgary property tax hikes. These are preliminary numbers but they are on the table.

Out of this world even for what you’d expect from out-of-this-world, money-hungry bigshots calling the shots at Calgary city hall.

The ugly arithmetic hits the street Wednesday supper time courtesy of Global Calgary. The incredible mathematics is from city hall but it was not released by city hall.

Presumably the high-and-mighties downtown were waiting to give Calgary taxpayers the punch in the gut at a later date.

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The mayor says just because the city hall boss paper shufflers offer up some impossible-to-swallow numbers it does not mean city council is going to accept those numbers.

Farkas says city hall politicians are going to ask city hall higher-ups very tough questions. The mayor says city council will hold the paper shufflers accountable for every dollar spent.

We’ve seen that movie and it almost never has a happy ending. Lights! Camera! Action!

You have to admit city hall brass have some nerve to even throw these obscene numbers out there, telling Calgarians council has to lower the tax hike working down from the Mount Everest of tax hikes.

These numbers make former mayor Naheed Nenshi and his crew look like tightwads, penny-pinchers.

Back almost two decades ago, when Calgarians faced a proposed 25 per cent tax increase over three years, taxpayers hit the roof, came down to city hall to a budget open house and confronted the mayor and those councillors with enough backbone to listen to them face to face.