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Days before they are to sit together for what’s expected to be a heated council session on cuts to the city budget, the city’s mayor and a member of council are pointing fingers at each other over the current financial predicament.

Coun. Jyoti Gondek took aim at Mayor Naheed Nenshi in a Saturday morning Facebook post titled “Don’t believe the hype: The real reason we’re facing drastic budget cuts.”

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Ahead of a meeting that will see council discuss $60 million in proposed spending cuts, including significant reductions to public transit, fire and police, Gondek fired back at recent comments from Nenshi.

“To have heard the mayor say last week we are where we are because council had no other good ideas, that was the last straw for me. That’s not an accurate representation — we had a very good idea, it didn’t pass the muster of what he wanted to see and, unfortunately, we are where we are because he wanted to promote his idea of the small business grant,” Gondek told Postmedia in an interview.

In her Facebook post, she added, “we are in this mess because leadership is lacking from our chief elected official,” accusing Nenshi of only consulting with a few councillors “as he deems fit.”

Meanwhile, Nenshi said through a statement to Postmedia that what’s coming forth next week is far from a perfect option.

“It’s unfortunate that there are some members of council trying to create a narrative that they somehow don’t share the responsibility for where we’re at,” Nenshi said. “Ultimately, council was unable to decide on an approach after considering many ideas — some good, some bad. What’s before us on Tuesday is not the best option, but it will achieve the goal of protecting small businesses while minimizing harm to citizens as much as possible.

“One of the ideas, brought forward by Coun. Gondek, was to significantly increase residential taxes and use the money we had set aside to help businesses to provide a one-time rebate to homeowners, instead of businesses, to make the tax increase more palatable. This idea, like others, failed to get the support of council and ultimately failed on a 12-3 vote. No single member of council, including the mayor, had the power to change that.”