The one trick pony

It would appear that council only knows one solution to budget problems - raise taxes. I guess the concept of reducing spending hasn't flitted across any brain being drained.

If given the choice of preserving our trees and mosquito control or putting off a capital project, I'll opt for the trees and mosquitos. And I do know the difference between capital and operating budgets. But if you reduce capital spending and increase operating, you can still come up with the same total amount of dollars being spent annually.

But the annual finger pointing ritual has begun, with the province bearing the brunt. Its not like council wasn't given warning that provincial funding was in jeopardy. And as council shamelessly hits at the province for off-loading they should remember they too have already off-loaded costs to tax payers with increased service and utility fees.

As for some homeowners that will receive the whopping extra cost on their tax bill for water line replacement, I am unclear as to whether that cost will be spread over several years, or whether the hit comes this year. If the full cost comes in one year, I expect some of these homeowners will find themselves unable to pay their taxes in full this year. Then they will get charged exorbitant interest for late payment of taxes or face losing their homes under tax enforcement. And why do we pay monthly infrastructure levies on our water bills? I would think every 50 to 100 years we should expect upgrades to old infrastructure and the levies should cover those upgrades.

Then again, these comments may all be for naught. We have six honourable councillors that committed to not raising taxes beyond the rate of inflation. Will they keep their promise? If not, will we remember the broken promises come the next civic election? Maybe we should be holding our elections in spring rather than in fall.

The one thing we can be certain of is that when the bills come in we will pony up the cash.