Hello all from Antigua, Guatemala.

Although late on my comments regarding the sale of Parcel Y, I do want to state that I concur with city manager Totland's earlier statement that the land is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. And I do question how the values were arrived at given the limitations put on the land as a result of the DCDs. Council has put out requests for proposals in past with very limited response. They obviously liked the Lake Placid proposal as they approved it. This may be one of those times that the adage a "bird in hand. . . " applies. For every year this land sits dormant it will cost us, the tax payers, about a million dollars a year in new taxes to maintain what currently exists at RL. The original intent of the mixed development (private and public) was to have taxes generated from the private developments pay for the public elements.

The concern I have is using this land value to establish new SAMA assessments for property downtown. Too many of the small business owners in the downtown core are taxed to the hilt and with the increase in parking fees for limited parking they may find themselves in distress. I think this situation is such an oddity that council should ensure that whatever the value placed on this land it should be exempted from the assessment formula. And no, I don't own property downtown.

We just finished our hike to the last active volcano in Antigua and will be taking a "chicken" bus west to the Mayan ruins in Tikal. This a good country. The people are friendly and the living is easy. I will report in tomorrow.

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.

Break the mould

I am stymied by the public obsession with Tiger Woods, his family problems and the need for atonement. I don't think Woods set out to make himself a demi-god/role model, although he did capitalize on it after we, the public, through the press, made him one. I think he just wanted to be a great golfer and make a lot of money.

On the other hand Bill Clinton, who held the most powerful position in the world and when on the quest for the office knew it was a universal role model position, committed the same or greater indiscretions and sins, and the consensus in the end was that his matrimonial and personal issues should be a private matter between him and his family. JFK's philandering did not prevent him from becoming an icon. And the list of greats goes on.

Closer to home, we don't drag into the public forum the sometimes known, but unspoken, personal, financial or family and/or matrimonial problems of some of our public officials. If in fact we believe their conduct in their personal lives is indicative of their character and integrity then why not hang out their dirty laundry for all to see? Perhaps we think them not worthy of being worshipped.

The problem with moulding mortals into gods is that eventually they do something that we deem is ungodly and they must pay the price for our disappointment.

Tiger Woods is an athlete. He has no ability to impact my quality of life. I personally am more interested in whether those who do have the ability to affect my standard of living are playing up to par.

What's left to say? Fore!

Eye-opener

In the recent provincial budget, to save a comparatively minuscule sum of money, the government cut funding to the Dutch Elm Disease program (SP Apr. 8/10.) It was so small it didn't make the media radar screen at the time of budget analysis. Yet it is a decision that will impact greatly on the masses, unless of course, the city picks up the slack.

Our city has millions and millions of dollars invested in its urban forest. Should we lose 60,000 elm trees to Dutch Elm disease the cost of removing and disposing of these trees will be horrendous to the local tax payer. The emotional cost to Saskatoonians watching their city become a barren wasteland will be even greater. Our oldest parks will be denuded. Our historic areas will be blighted.

Although the city has only lost $22,500 in funding, it will cost more than that to maintain the program if areas surrounding the city are not participating in the program and the disease goes unchecked outside of the city boundaries.

I hope our city government will not suffer the myopia of our provincial leaders. Aside from being vigilant with the Dutch Elm program, I now think the city should be proactive and start replacing every second or third elm with a new planting so when the inevitable happens we will have, at the very least, a canopy of hope. Our trees can be treated and saved. Perhaps a shared cost program with homeowners can be viable option. If given the choice to spend money now to preserve our trees or spend money later to remove the dead debris, I'll spend now. Better yet, put a River Landing project on hold and make this a priority.

If you think this isn't important, next time you walk through a park or down a street, view it without trees.

I am reminded of the adage: In the land of the blind the man with one seeing eye is king.

No thank you and please don't call again

There is nothing that peeves me more than telephone solicitations. I used to try and politely decline whatever was being offered. Now I simply do not answer 800 or 888 incoming calls. If I do inadvertently answer, I simply, and rudely, hang up. In past I have asked to have my number removed from the list, to no avail. I go nuts when they fill up my voice mail with their canned messages. Not that long ago I was given a number to call to have my number removed from solicitation lists. Fortunately I misplaced the slip of paper with the contact information as I later heard that the "no contact" list was sold to a telephone solicitor.

Now the government is planning to release my personal contact information to health regions for the purpose of aiding foundations to solicit donations. News flash! I already get several requests a year from each of our hospital foundations. If roughly half of my taxes didn't already go to support medicare I might have a few dollars to throw at them.

I expect the last straw will be for Sask Tel to sell off cell phone number lists to telephone solicitors and then charge the customer for minutes used and voice mail retrieval.

In this age of communication, how do any of us communicate to the powers that be that we do not want to be plagued with unwanted, uninvited and annoying telephone solicitations?

Do as I say . . .

I don't know if its the water or some other negative environmental issue affecting Regina these days but it seems to be the home base for questionable behaviour.

There is chaos is the legislature. FNUC is spiralling into self-destruction. And now, according to a CBC report on today's Sheila Cole Show, a grad from the U of R is alleging plagiarism by a professor. According to the report the grad reported the incident to the university, they did an investigation but will not release the findings of the investigation or any action taken.

This is truly sad. Universities are the last bastion of truth, freedom and justice. They set standards and expectations for good conduct for all who attend and, hopefully, impress upon their students to honour those learnings during their careers. Students are amply warned of the repercussions of plagiarism. They can be expelled and/or have their degrees revoked. Careers have been ruined over this issue. Why the U of R would not publicly respond to the allegation is mind-numbing.

If this conduct is indicative the quality of the administration of the U of R we should question the wisdom of putting the fate of FNUC in these hands.

Believe it or not

Perhaps Brad Wall should considering proroguing the legislature since nothing constructive is being done by our elected members. When my kids misbehaved they got a time out to be served alone in their rooms and to think about their misconduct. It would appear that some of our MLAs could use a similar time out.

I was particularly appalled byLingenfelter's recent antic of "throw a lot of mud and hope some sticks" with his allegations against LeClerc (SP Apr.3/10). If LeClerc had made threatening remarks to Lingenfelter last November I can't believe that Link wouldn't have capitalized on it then. Link states "when he threatens me and says he knows where my family lives, I take issue with that." If I felt my family had been threatened I wouldn't have waited four or five months to deal with it. LeClerc is the perfect patsy as he has been open about his past and rehabilitation. He also has 25 years of good work to prove his rehab worked and to offset his misdeeds of past. There is no point to reform if we continually throw an individual's past at them whenever if behooves a cause.

The dangling questions is: Who is the thug?