Dear Editor:
I read with interest your article regarding petitioning to change an elected politician mid-term and agree with most of your comments.
However, what do we do with a municipal government that can at best be seen as an expensive irrelevance and at worst destroying an already anemic local economy by failing to take measures to level up an incredibly unfair business tax system, and makes matters worse by increasing the cost base of all local businesses and residents by putting up property taxes (businesses pay three times the level of residential so it hits us three times as much) electricity charges` and water rates, again these are all higher for businesses.
All this extra tax revenue we are told is to rebuild our creaking infrastructure, yet there are no “shovel ready” and costed investment plans at city hall.
In an era of low interest rates, this investment can be cheaply funded by issuing long term municipal bonds not funded out of cash flow.
Every dollar they take out of the local economy with higher taxes is a dollar less spent in local businesses.
Unless this council has the foresight to break this vicious cycle by some “out of the box thinking” we are locked in perpetual decline.
Having had first-hand experience of trying to protest a decision made by this council, I am sure that there will be no change.
I have therefore resigned from His Worship’s Economic Task Force in disgust as I believe it to be a total waste of time, as are the so-called business walks taken by this council.
We need action in this town to stimulate our economy not more smiles and glad handing, but our representatives in city hall seem hell-bent on turning us all back into peasant farmers by allowing us to keep two chickens in our back yard.
I seem to remember a person called Pol Pot who pursued similar policies.
John Lathey
Summerland
