Trivia????? You choose

The lat thought in my head before I went  to sleep was the yeae I was  first elected. 1967.

I re-call the Mayor's statement the night the  budget was struck. It was  the most important event of the year. All things stemmed from the budget.

It was the first budget to reach a million dollars.

The population was  7,500.

Water was a flat rate less than $7.50 a quarter.

The Water Reserve Account was the only reserve we had.

We built a third bay on the  fire hall that  year and borrowed  the money from the $18,000 Water Reserve Account.

We also ad to borrow from the bank to pay the accounts until the first tax  payment was collected.

Sewers were on the tax rate. We had a Volunteer Fire Brigade  and   ur own police force.

The town's share of the tax bill was around twenty-nine per cent.

The biggest share went to the Boards of Education. Which were also municipal.

Now,including water and sewer rates separately charged, the budget is a $1million a thousand.

The Province has absorbed increases in  education costs for the past decade.

The  Town's Financial Officer  feels it is to allow the municipality more room to tax.

I would argue  the purpose  wasto relieve  property owners  of  exorbitant  taxincreases.

That is not what happened.

So, to re-cap,  forty-six years ago, property taxes were  $1 million  per 7,500 people.

This year, the burden was  $1 million per 1,000 people.

Of  course it's not that simple.

But  I didn't make the equation  between the municipality's size and the annual operating  budget.

The current Mayor did that on Tuesday night.

By the way, in 2013 , the budget was slipped through with no message  from the Head of Council to the community about the state of the town's economy.

Nothing  at all  was said about  budget on Council's most important decision of the year.

The  amount of which apparently signifies a change to major metropolis status.