Congratulations Ottawa taxpayers, you have more than risen to the occasion … a full-fledged property tax revolt is well under way. The message to Mayor Chiarelli and city council is being heard loud and clear: You promised us a tax freeze budget in January; you can't renege on this promise five months later. A 6.5% increase is not on, not now, not ever!

Thousands of you responded to Wednesday's column and the call to arms to sign the CTF's "Say No to Ottawa Property Tax Hikes" petition - thankfully my fax machine works overtime for the same wage - which can be found at www.taxpayer.com. And by all means, keep them coming. Council next meets on May 28th and if enough public pressure is applied we can get council to re-open the 2003 budget and trim non-priority expenditures instead of hiking our property taxes.

Your emails have been fantastic and chalk full of suggestions for areas where councilors can cut the city's budget. More importantly, hundreds of readers have also forwarded these suggestions to their own councillor, or more often than not, the entire council. Good for you.

Some readers and callers have suggested that we email and phone councillors at home … the reasoning being that since they're ultimately affecting our home lives and budgets with a tax hike, turnabout is fair play. In terms of hounding the Mayor (Bus: 580-2496, Email: [email protected]) and councillors (surf by www.ottawa.ca for a full council list) with phone calls, faxes and emails, absolutely, this is what a democracy is all about.

However, we MUST draw the line at city hall. Regardless of this unconscionable plan to plow ahead and hike taxes, none of these elected officials deserve to be pestered at home; it is unethical and just plain wrong. Moreover, their spouses/partners and families are not elected officials, respect their privacy please.

If the Mayor and council were political astute on this issue, they would use this "property tax crisis" to immediately trim the budget … scaling back advisory committees that hardly ever meet, cutting paid advertising - in all media - by 50% or more, saving full costs at OC Transpo by re-jigging travel distances from garage to route starts, canceling a raft of social engineering studies, sifting through pages of expenditures in the quarterly delegated authority report, ditching the free baby seat idea as reported in yesterday's Sun, eliminating the pesticides reduction grant, cuts at the 85-person communications department … the list is endless.

Then by the end of June council should initiate a core services review … this must be the umpteenth time in three years of column writing this idea has been put on the table. These exercises usually generate between 5% and 10% in savings … that's $90 million to $180 million on a $1.8 billion budget. Pundits may call this small change; taxpayers call it a good start.

Several councillors have emailed me along with candidates for council and it is clear that this property tax issue and the broader question of the fiscal management at the city is now the ballot question for November's municipal election. It harkens back to the old Ronald Reagan question that he used to defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

Asked in relation to Ottawa, the answer is a resounding no. Our city is dirtier (litter, graffiti, etc.) than it was in 2000. Our reserves are depleted. Taxpayers and citizens feel more removed from city hall than we did just three short years ago. Or should we say city hall is more remote - perhaps deliberately so - from us?

Lifelong residents of Ottawa are being charged new water account hookup fees because they dared to move a block or two away? And we shouldn't forget earlier council preoccupations with trying to ban the Shriner's circus, giving Frisky the cat a license and spending hours and countless dollars on pathetic advertising campaigns telling us what to spray and what not to spray on our precious rose gardens.

Keep those petitions coming and keep reading these pages and keep your ears open - literally - as the next stages in tax revolt 2003 unfold. And while it would be nice if some 200,000 homeowners signed on to our petition and called city hall, it is not an absolute necessity. As Samuel Adams once said: "It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." Yes ladies and gentlemen, you most certainly can fight city hall.