Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Council Sets Record For Tax Increases



15% Tax Increase In Two Years

I realize that the total tax increase consists of the City, RDN, School District, NRGH and a few others, but under this council we have seen two consecutive increases that are double of any previous council's.

Increasing Taxes Requires Creative Spending

When a council can't supply the community with the services they are paying for within acceptable levels of inflation, they need to be replaced.

Take a look around Nanaimo and list all of the improvements you, as a taxpayer are seeing for your ever-increasing taxes. Now make a list of them and post them in the comments below.

Councillors Live In A Different World

They somehow think that from their seats of power they can solve all of societies ails. Homelessness, drug abuse are two that make the top of the list all the time. 

These are two areas of governance that the city keeps allowing the senior levels of government to download on city taxpayers. I think that taking on these areas gives councillors a sense of importance that really goes well beyond simply seeing citizens get the services they are paying for.

The wage paid to councillors, for basically a part time gig is equal to what many Nanaimo taxpayers have to live on. Add the income from their 'real' jobs or pensions and you have a group that thinks 5% tax increases on top of 'fee' increases are ONLY a few more dollars, and who can't afford that??

The current covid crisis is clearly showing how weak the Canadian economy has become. A great deal of that weakness is the mind set of council's just like we have in Nanaimo.

Imagine, taxes have now come to a point where this council feels they might have to borrow $52 million to handle cash flow issues if citizens can't pay their taxes. If the city does in fact have to rely on those borrowed funds, being unable to control spending ............ the city would technically be insolvent.

This Council's Hypocrisy

When it comes to loading more tax increases onto the backs of Nanaimo taxpayers, a common refrain from most of council is " it is ONLY $$$(fill in a number).

So, when this council was elected, due to a change in taxes levied on city councillors, what did they do?? Did they just suck it up and dig a little deeper (like they expect taxpayers to do)?

No, instead of digging into their own pockets, they got together and voted themselves a RAISE equal to the amount of extra taxes they would have had to pay.



allvoices

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comment will appear after moderation before publishing,

Thank you for your comments.Any comment that could be considered slanderous or includes unacceptable language will be removed.

Thank you for participating and making your opinions known.

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.