Councillors Fail To Cut $1,000,000 From Budget

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Bestwick, Kipp & McKay Fail To Reduce Taxes
Ruttan, Johnstone, Pattje, Anderson, Greves & Brennan vote to spend, spend, spend!

At the budget review being done during the Special committee of the whole meeting on March 19, Councillor Bestwick attempted to have $1,000,000 removed from the budget which is earmarked for 'retheming' the pools at Beban and Nanaimo Aquatic Centre.

Basically, the idea put forward by staff and supported by Ruttan, Johnstone, Pattje, Anderson, Greves and Brennan is to replace 'tired' water toys and perhaps slap around some fresh paint so the users of the pool won't stop coming because they are bored of the decor.

The motion to spend the money had previously been passed, but Bestwick brought it forward again for consideration based on the information he had obtained by actually visiting the facility and taking to patrons of the pool. His observations led him to believe it prudent for council to consider other uses of one million tax dollars, but clearly the majority on council are still in tax and spend mode, regardless of what they may claim.

Staff Misleading by Omission?

During council's debate regards removing this item from the budget, Councillor Greves  made the emphatic point that these expenses were coming from a reserve fund of some kind and would not affect taxation. At one point he asked Mr. Hickey for the name of the special account used for this funding, and Mr. Hickey volunteered the name. The point Greves made was that since this was funded from a special reserve it was not impacting general taxation.

Only later during discussion did Councillor Kipp ask the direct question about whether this was funded by general taxation or not, did staff say it was not funded from a special reserve, and would in fact come from general taxation.

In this particular case neither Mr. Hickey, Mr. Clemens or Mr. Swabey ever attempted to correct Greves erroneous assertions that these funds were coming from a reserve fund.

Councillor Brennan Feels Money Has To Be Spent Anyway

Council observers would likely agree that the bulk of council seem only to exist to see how to creatively spend tax dollars, seemingly oblivious to tax fatigue on the part of at least half the city's population.

During this debate Brennan noted that this money is going to have to be spent sooner or later, apparently unaware of the fact a new council this fall may have a different view of how to manage the tax dollars at their disposal.

In supporting his decision to keep the item in the budget Councillor Anderson said he had heard no new issues that would have him change his mind. In retrospect I can't remember if Anderson actually attended the meetings where this matter had been previously discussed. He seemed to give no weight to Bestwick's findings after going to the facilities and speaking with patrons.

Why City Taxes Will Never Go Down

This is just a small example of how, regardless of what councillors may say about wanting to hold the line on taxes, it will never happen.

Whether that changes this fall, will depend on whether the 73% who didn't vote last time, will finally get off the couch, quit their bitchin' and finally make some meaningful changes on council. This council only knows how to tax and spend, and they demonstrate that time and time again.