The Editor,
The Surrey general tax is held at 2.9 per cent. Sounds good until you look at Surrey residents’ total tax bill going up by over 10 per cent, thanks to the “parcel tax” increase of 200 per cent.
Funding for all those projects so kindly listed by the city in a recent media release should be from general revenues. The so-called parcel tax, started in 2016, is still a general tax on the citizens of the city.
The “Public safety and bylaw services tax” that was brought forward in 2017 has been less than $50, but it is also part of a general taxation to the citizens, just a different line item that obviously does not include the cost of policing.
When will the City of Surrey communicate the actual total cost of the proposed Surrey Police force versus what it would have been if the RCMP were left in place (including the subsidy that we receive from the federal government)?
Now that is a communication that would be of some value to the citizens, not a headline that hides the truth.
Terry Peel, Surrey
