As a Taxpayer, I followed the City Budget deliberations with considerable interest and was very disillusioned and disgusted by the new sly tactics that Council used in minimizing public visibility of their budgeting activities.
The City budget and how Council is planning on spending taxpayers’ money (our money) is by far the most important issue that Council deals with! Thus, in my mind it was very unprofessional, perhaps sneaky, to move the process into poorly publicized special meetings away from the public eye! However, it was even worse to hide the final Budget approval, with the associate discussion and debate, from the high visibility of a regular Council meeting!
No doubt Council didn’t want to deal with the public backlash of their significant tax increases; however, this clearly demonstrated a new low for this council! It certainly demonstrated a disrespectful attitude toward taxpayers’ and their hard-earned dollars! Taking our Taxation dollars seems to have become an underhanded, annual philosophy of “taxation by stealth,” since they are reducing their spending visibility while hitting the taxpayer with yet another tax increase, plus the addition of a levy which is really just a flat tax!!
Ever year they want more and more money from taxpayers to support their increased spending! But in reality, they should be looking inward for fiscal efficiencies and living within their means; just like taxpayers are forced to do!
Taxpayers, especially those on fixed income, don’t and never have gotten the big annual increases that Council keeps approving and handing to administration! It’s as if they are divorced from taxpayer everyday fiscal realities! Consequently, the Taxpayer is left to “cut-back” and find internal home and personal efficiencies in order to pay for the bloated “gold plated” bureaucracy of City Hall!
We have had other incompetent Councils, but this Council – other than Swanson – with their lack of transparency and poor leadership really take the prize for being the worst Council ever!
They clearly deserve to be voted out of public office next election!
-- Michael Dolan, HBsc.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
