Editor:
Two things that CVRD’s ‘Notice of Referendum’ for the Duncan Chesterfield Sports Society does not tell you:
First, if you vote yes, you will be authorizing the CVRD to add the funding to your taxes as a permanent Line Item. You can be sure of one thing — taxes go up and, if you vote yes, your annual contribution to the Chesterfield Sports Society will go up automatically.
Secondly, the amount given is per $1,000 of the net taxable value of land and your improvements. I have never seen a rate of net value per $1,000 ever before. The standard way is to give a rate per $100,000, not per $1,000! Multiplying the amount given by 100 gets it up to the normal per $100,000.
For Area G, the published increase is $0.01490 times 100 gives $1.49 (I will call this the ST value). If your assessed value is, say $359,000, multiply the ST value by 3.59 and you will be paying $5.35. At first glance, $5.35 a year does not seem too bad, but take it one step further.
I took my ST times my assessed value and then I compared that number to the amount I am already paying for recreation in Saltair. Saltair has a Line Item for the Frank Jameson Community Center and a Line Item for Saltair Recreation. By adding those two taxation amounts and calculating the percentage increase the referendum proposes, I find that the referendum will increase my recreation cost by 10 per cent!
A 10-per-cent increase for a facility in Duncan that takes about a half hour to get to, one that my family has never used and probably will never use. We are voting no, and I urge you to get out and vote no also.
Jim Whittaker
Saltair
