Hello Editor of The Campbell River Mirror,
I am a very concerned citizen of Campbell River in these troubled times. I would like to address these concerns to you, hoping you will ask and relay these concerns to the councillors of Campbell River city hall.
Firstly, what are city halls plans regarding all property taxes?
2nd, How does city hall expect people and businesses to recover from this crisis if they do not take very drastic measures to help all residences and business.
I have just gone through city hall’s most recent minutes and see many very concerning items that show me they do not care about about Campbell Rivers tax paying citizens. I have just recently talked to the clerk at city hall and asked for a call back from one of the council members regarding this issue.
In my opinion, during these very very troubled times, city hall needs to take some of these steps, if not all of them:
1. Do only very essential services only.
2. Lower property taxes, not just defer them. This should be easy to do with the closure of Strathcona Gardens, Sportsplex, community center and library (not sure if the museum, chamber of commerce, safety office by the Royal Bank. and any other municipal place should be closed to stop the risk of this virus spreading).
In my opinion, $211,000 for a Sportsplex floor are not essential in these terrible times. Nether is $235,000 for a Sportsplex wall in these troubled times. These two instances are just a few of the ways city hall councillors are acting recklessly with the tax dollars of Campbell River’s residents. Just these two issues alone raise so many questions, the biggest being how is this work even possible to be accomplished when its indoors? Unless there is a plan for one person to do all the work.
City hall needs to remember, they are making decisions with people’s lives they have no right making right now. The reason I am contacting you now is because I have seen nothing in your paper regarding this when other municipalities have already announced cost cutting measures to help their residents.
If anyone has some measure of clout, voice, opinion, sway, to tell these councillors that were voted in unanimously – that we are hoping and counting on them to lead us through this so Campbell River people can come out of this with some sort of an optimistic future – I hope it is you.
Kindest regards,
Ken Olsen
