Go To A Nanaimo City Council Meeting

Tell YOUR Council What You Think
About The Five Year Financial Plan
Attend The Council Meeting Tonight!

The 2010 - 2014 Financial Plan is currently under review and your input is invited by the council and City of Nanaimo.

Members of the public are encouraged to provide input into the Five Year Financial Plan. The opportunity to speak regarding budget issues is also available at all Regular and Committee of the Whole Council Meetings.

You can view the Financial Plan on the City's website at www.nanaimo.ca or copies can be picked up at he City Hall Finance Department.

Any questions you have regarding the plan should be addressed to 250-755-4414 for assistance.

Meetings you can attend are scheduled as follows:

• Nov. 23 - 7:00 pm Shaw Auditorium (in your new convention centre)
• Nov. 30 - 4:30 pm City Hall Board Room
• Dec. 7 - 4:30 pm City Hall Board Room
• Dec. 14 - 7:00 pm Shaw Auditorium
• Jan. 11 - 7:00 pm Shaw Auditorium

It is a great idea for taxpayers to provide their input and let officials know exactly what you think about their financial management of your funds. If you are so inclined try and attend a live council meeting in your new convention centre. If you can't attend in person, the meeting is broadcast live on Shaw Channel 4 and is also now available online at the City of Nanaimo website. You can find archived meetings which you can watch on your computer. So there is no excuse for not finding out what is going on at these meetings.

Remember if you rely on the newspaper or even this website for information it is never as good as finding out for yourself and coming to your own conclusions.

Some Food For Thought

These are just a few quick thoughts to get your juices flowing about some financial issues facing Nanaimo and how this Council seems to be reacting.

In the past few weeks the council has spent $480,000 to pay Mr. Berry to stay home, agreed to pay another $758,000 for more RCMP, $434,000 for more firemen and are talking about spending $300,000 to find someone to build a hotel no one wants to build and now another $250,000 to decide what to do with the assembly wharf.

That is about $2,000,000,00 and they say they are trying desparately to not increase taxes!

City Staff Costs Each Man Woman and Child $588.00 per year.

That is just a rough and I do mean rough calculation which was based on a city payroll of $50,000,000.00 and a population of 85,000 which works out to $588.00 per year just to pay for city staff wages and salaries. If you are two people in one household you are paying about $100 per month for wages.

You still have to pay for your water, garbage removal etc. etc. That does not include the cost of machinery etc. etc. it is just the raw cost of staff.

Do you think you are getting your monies worth?