We're all taxed to death = no pulse.

"The survey had a 9% return rate"...

Pathetic. Considering the general population has a 91% complaining rate.

acrider, that is a good plan, nobody move, than we can all pretend to be dead, and then no more taxes.

MrPG, back during WW2 people like you were called collaborators. LOL.

Maybe they should try to send it out to more people or a different group of people.

Where did this survey come from? I don't remember seeing it at all.

If a 9% return rate is the pulse of the city, then we must be on life support...

Like they really care. Come on! All they know how to do is give themselves a raise then 3 weeks later raise the taxes. People are tire of all the studies and polls. They are ignored unless it involves spending tax payer money.

Can I please get a break on my house taxes for 5 years tooooo? I find myself short and my house taxes are 3800.00 a year. *Begging Look

Call me a collaborator too then because I agree with MrPG - 9%?????? Very sad.

The sad thing is that 9% is considered a pretty decent return on any survey.

People love to complain but they don't take the time to answer questions or fill out surveys.

I did get a call about this survey and almost hung up as I thought it was yet another telemarketer. I would assume most thought the same and simply hung up or ignored the information.

The survey was in favour of the City reducing debt servicing and avoiding an further big expenditures, for major projects.

So in simplistic terms, do you think the City will pay any attention to this survey. If they did it would mean they should shelve the PAC. Reduce the cost of the Police Station, and get rid of the **stupid** Community Energy Project.

I suspect they will ignore this survey as it doesnt fit in with their plans.

It's pretty easy to dismiss the findings of a survey that had a 9% response rate.

We are our own worst enemies. We expect our elected officials to listen to us, but we don't take the time to respond to a survey, where our elected officals are trying to solicit our input.

Maybe they should just read these pages, lots of input here.

What survey? We did not get a call so how you respond to a survey that you knew nothing about. These should be in the papers so we all have a shot to respond to them.

Lots of people talk about taxes increasing.

But it's worse than it looks. Remember we've also significantly increased outside sources of revenue over the years, including gaming (addicted now), Terasen lease-in/out, traffic tickets and others.

So not only have taxes consistently shot up, other revenue has as well.

Which means the City's spending problem is even worse than we think because we tend to just focus on the taxation numbers.

The city is out of control, and it puts important capital projects and and other initiatives in jeopardy.

On the survey - it's stupid. So we're happy with fire services? Compared to what it could be? But we don't know that.

All we know is that we feel safe. But we have no idea if their service is efficient or not. Are we happy with the value we're getting compared to the cost?

As for the desire for major expenditures for new projects, that needs to be interpreted. The assumption by respondents is likely that new major projects would necessitate increasing taxes that are already too high.

What if we decrease operational taxes by 10%, then increase them by 2% to pay for a Performing Arts Centre for a net tax decrease of 8%? Think of all the construction jobs, downtown development catalyst, economic development amenities etc. that would benefit us.

Would people be so opposed to a PAC AND an 8% decrease in city taxes?

Hint: the problem isn't the PAC or other projects. It's a city management and culture that has no idea how to get value for money on the lion's share of it's budget - operations.

(ps - what's Mike Davis been doing for his $115,000 per year? Haven't heard anything - not a peep - from our new high-priced "communications" guy)

(pps - swing a dead cat around at city hall and you'll hit 10 to 15 high-priced middle managers that don't need to be there. We the taxpayers don't owe them a job. $1.5 million per year in savings in an afternoon. Repeat regularly)

I don't remember seeing any survey, did they actually ask anyone outside of city hall?? The reason we don't want anuge expenditures is by hecause we get to pay for it in the form of higher taxes We are already paying too much as it is, and as usual the cost of living is going up and the wages are eiher staying the same or the jobs are leaving. How can we be expected to pay more taxes if we don't make more money?? I find it interesting when you ask this very simple quesion to most politicians not only will they not answer your question of how to pay more taxes without increasing wages they will usually try to give you their best sales pitch on why the taxes are necessary.

You want a valid survey? advertise it properly call it a cost of living survey and give people time to answer it, then roll out the results on the news or something. These behind the curtain surveys don't really mean anything, if no one knows they exist.

City council can now say based on their findings they can now go ahead with whatever it is they want to increase. Even city council must realize a 9% return on any survey is a failure to launch, why don't they try another survey? and another until they get at least a 50% response, otherwise its a waste of time.
The results don't mean anything, and are not a true cross section of the average citizen.

"City council can now say based on their findings they can now go ahead with whatever it is they want to increase. Even city council must realize a 9% return on any survey is a failure to launch, why don't they try another survey? and another until they get at least a 50% response, otherwise its a waste of time. "

It's unlikely you'd ever get a 50% response rate. Remember, not even 50% turned up to vote.

Unlike the people on this site, the 'average citizen' doesn't care enough to bother with what City Hall is doing. Harsh, but true.

Get ready, we'll see this soon in cities around BC. Scroll down to "Virginia hands out tickets"

[url]http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

[url]http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/[url]

I hate having to tag URLs. How about this:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

Thanks bohemian, How do you do that?

@acrider54 - you had a simple typo in the url tagging syntax. (I offen mess it up, too, and you can't edit your comment to fix)

If you look at your second attempt you will see the slash is outside the url tag brackets, but it needs be be inside like the example at the bottom of the page.

So, opening tag has no slash, closing tag does.

...needs to be...

(feature request - ability to edit one's own comments)

(feature request - ability to edit one's own comments)

I have to disagree. Can you imagine how much fun the trolls would have with that ability?

Too bad the city does not do the survey over the internet, to determine exactly how the tax payers feel about the way the city conducts themselves.

Here's one for the potholers
.
BERLIN (AFP) – A novel idea by a hard-up east German village to sell its potholes to finance their repair has gotten off to a good start, with 111 already
snapped up, the official website showed.

Since last week people, have been able to buy a hole in Niederzimmern near Leipzig for 50 euros ($68). In return, the authorities will repair it, and “sponsor” it by putting a personal message on top.

Those interested can choose which pothole grabs their fancy by perusing photos, complete with a toy yellow dumper truck to give an idea of scale, available on the village’s website.

Information is even provided in English to potential buyers outside Germany. Niederzimmern Mayor Christoph Schmidt-Rose said on local radio on Friday that he did not know how many potholes there were left

once agian another survey that i never heard about or seen i never got a call never had nothing sent to me these surveys are a damm joke. 9% another joke iam sure that if more knew about so called survey that percent would be a lot higher ... once agian what a joke .

@MrPG - idea being you can only edit if no one else has commented behind you, at which time you couldn't edit your comment. This is a pretty standard feature on a good number of blogs.

I think it would be useful to be able to fix a url syntax issue or typo after the comment was posted, but before others commented on your comment.

"People love to complain but they don't take the time to answer questions or fill out surveys."

Please recall that many people on here comment on there being too many surveys, studies, consultant reports.

Perhaps the indicator there is that there are some smart people out there who do not want to be part of the aiding and abetting process.

I got a call about H1N1 asking questions such as:
Did you take your shot?
Why not, if not?
Do you believe it was a bad as indicated?
Do you think the shots are safe?
It took 20 minutes out of my evening. I was happy to do it but would not want to do them on a regular basis. I cherish my limited time off.

gus: "Perhaps the indicator there is that there are some smart people out there who do not want to be part of the aiding and abetting process."

And those people are probably at the top of the list of whiners and complainers that the government 'doesn't listen to them'.

how do you take the pulse when the patient is too far gone ? idiots