Mayor Larry O'Brien should solve the budget deficit by following through on a plan he revealed several months ago to fire staff, says the man who elicited the plan.

Roger Graves asked O'Brien on Sept. 4, at an election event organized by the Carleton Landowners Association, what he planned to do about city wages, the city's single biggest expense.

'You save money by firing layers of bulging bureaucracy that doesn't make any sense.... We need to bring those people to heel and I, as mayor, would do that.'-Mayor Larry O'Brien on Sept. 4

In tape from the Stittsville event, O'Brien gives this response: "You save money by firing layers of bulging bureaucracy that doesn't make any sense.... We need to bring those people to heel and I, as mayor, would do that."

O'Brien suggests in the tape that the bulge includes staff in finance, public relations, planning and engineering.

Graves said he expects O'Brien, who promised to freeze taxes for four years, to keep to his word and his plan.

"You can't make strong statements and get elected [and then not follow through] because it just doesn't work like that," said Graves, adding that now that O'Brien is mayor, "I think it's reasonable to say, 'OK, guys, now is the time we have to start getting rid of people.'"

The mayor's spokesman, Mike Patton, said that while O'Brien remains committed to a tax freeze, his ideas evolved during the campaign. The Carleton Landowners event took place six weeks into the campaign, when O'Brien was not considered a front-runner in the mayor's race.

Later in the fall, O'Brien told voters that wage savings would come through attrition.

Patton said the mayor is now sticking to that as city council begins figuring out what to do about a shortfall of about $100 million in next year's proposed budget.