Prada

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Modern Day Politics and the Game of Monopoly":

20:00 - He was correct. All those years of zero tax increases under Tim Jones didn't do us any favours, long-term.o

Posted by Anonymous to Our Town and Its Business at 31 January 2015 at 20:09

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Former Mayor Jones probably appreciates the reminder of years (17) without tax increases. It 's not a bad legacy. Councils  past considered zero tax increase a job well done.

It was no feat  of magic. Growth brought new revenues and the coat was cut according to the cloth.
 The town was still a good place to raise a family without all the frills and dol-de-rolls. 

Odd the comment skips the term between Mayors Jones and Dawe when how taxes were spent was not much appreciated by the electorate. They changed the Council.

Little changed with the new Council. Growth continued but taxes already inflated by  previous Council not only stayed  artificially high ,they increased further year by year. Water and sewer rates, also a tax, multiplied several times. Spending swallowed up grants and land sales and still taxes
ballooned  outward.

Mayor Dawe, in his first year clearly parroting proclaimed  water is "the best bargain"of any  municipal service. Necessity of tax increases became the new mantra of city hall.

The building became a  hive of crazy schemes and promotions to turn the town into a capital of one thing or another..As if all that had been needed  all along was great imagination  at the Council table,

We had that by the bucketful.

 Resources flowed  smoothly and easily  out of town coffers and  just as slickly came to nothing.

Expensisve  annual memberships in Institutes of Excellence at handing out meaningless awards

$300.000 worth of preparation for  a city hall addition that never happened.

Culture continued to be purchased at an escalated scale from the initial cost rent-free public-space maintenance   provided and $347,000. to a self-appointed board  committed to secrecy.

Legal advice financed for simple  but politically awkward  decisions.

Chicanes removed  from public rights-of-way at  substantial cost and no  improvement in traffic flow.

Consultant studies average cost $65,000. proliferated .

Senseless severance packages continued to be paid out and kept secret from Council.

The hydro property , needed for town purpose continued to be leased to the federal government ,term extended to thirty years, at the expense of local taxpayers.

Joint  Facility estimates spiralled upwards  even before construction.

A contract awarded under- specified by $900,000. With completion five months late.

A continual rush to purchase properties taking staff time while pending decisions on properties already owned  remain pending.

Now there's a budget before Council with 6.5 increase not including water and sewer rate increases.

Artifice to create the illusion of  politicians wrestling the budget down to an acceptable level to sell to a self and frequently proclaimed affluent community