Editor:
I hope every property owner is sick and tired of our local bureaucrats constantly bring out the same-old same-old scare comparisons every single year. This year it is finance director Harji Varn’s turn. Her statement? Eighty to 90 per cent of municipalities in B.C. are saying they’ll have tax increases in the range of five to seven per cent in 2023.
Gee, I don’t hear 80 to 90 per cent of our New Westminster residents saying they will be spending five to seven per cent more in 2023! I actually hear that, while necessary purchases will cost more, they are cutting back or cutting out buying certain items.
What the hell has Ms. Varn’s quote have to do with New Westminster? Are we not our own unique city with better ideas than most who, unlike our bragging list, can’t afford to hire the “best of the best”? Or should we talk “cutbacks” by reducing our hired employees, as Coun. Jamie McEvoy said, and then let’s call it what it is. And what is bad about councillor Daniel Fontaine recommending that we firstly find “efficiencies," or is that taboo with the staff?
I rather doubt if there is a single reader that has not considered cutbacks in his or her family, especially in 2023.
One of these days the “sheeple” will demand amalgamation of municipalities throughout our province. A mayor, councillors, managers and staff up the yin-yang for every single registered municipality is unbelievable. Take a page out of private corporation mergers and acquisitions over the past 50 years. Their buzzword is to gain efficiencies and ultimately better productivity.
A statistic that can’t be argued is that a huge percentage of families are sadly dollars away from losing everything. Like raising interest rates, raising city taxes are killers to our survival. And stick to core duties, New Westminster. Cut out spending time and huge money just to have those “feel-good moments."
Stop fooling around trying to erase history, especially when it was history out of our territory.
Bill Davis, New Westminster
📢 SOUND OFF: What do you think? How should the city handle its budget for 2023? Do you think it needs to curtail spending? Or do you have a different perspective? Send us a letter.
