Uh oh, this is going to get ugly.

Welcome to the city of Libya.

A buck seventy eight for the roads and $27.55 for a 2 week photo op for Rodgers. Hopefully Rodgers will be just a distant memory by the time the games arrive. I could stomach the $27.55 for the roads but certainly not for the games. What a shabby way to treat the citizens of PG.
Referendums from here on in. Just wait till Rodgers takes another crack at us for the PAC.

Wonder where all these $200,000.00 dollar houses are? Guess they missed the deadline for getting published in the local real estate for sale supplement.

What road rehab??

I cannot wait for the $50+million PAC to be built. You know! Right when we get the $50+ million police station. I sure hope there is enough left over for the free face lift down on George Street.

Funny!

wouldn't mind the increase if we got somethings in return like better snow removal and less pot holes. maybe instead of trips to china city hall could travel the other citys in the north and learn from them. the mayor has lived here long enough to know that it is a northern community and we get winter which requires snow removal for a good five months of the year or better. take your head out of your ars dan and look after the peoples needs first and then their wants latter. better chance of getting in a another term.

getting rid of potholes is a pipe dream. Getting rid of Dan is a possible dream.

Gus, how much has our taxes risen in the last three years. Is it over 12%.

OK we might have had the money already in bank if the city did not do such wasteful spending. The tax money (no matter where it if from) is still at the end of the day money coming from our wallets. We can conclude it all goes to general revenue. We could have saved $500,000 on the pg hotel land flip from commonwealth. we could have saved the demolition and reclaiming costs that have already been ear marked for the hotel clean up. We could save a further $20,000 for the farmers market That do dought will get approved on the building commonwealth owns. We can save $360,000 on the proposed 36 unit housing development that commonwealth wants to build by their health centre in the form of grant incentives. We could have saved money on the parking lot that commonwealth uses. $3,000,000 I believe. $1,000,000 grant to reno the building that commonwealth owns. Not to mention the zero interst loans they have received that we the tax payers could be making money off of. In short, commmonwealth and its group of companies are the ones at this momment sucking your tax dollars out of your pocket. I guess we need to feed the beast. If commonwealth and/ or any developer wants to buy up and rebuild the down town then go for it. by giving them tax money from any branch of government only increases their profits. do it on yopur own dime and not ours. for free enterprize company they sure are aacting socialist.

Danny boy, maybe you should read some of these bloggers opinions. I would bet 95% of us will be voting.

If we care enough to have an opinion to blog, I would say we care enough to vote.

can anyone tell me who regulates municipical spending and taxation if anyone? is it the feds or the province? and if there is noone, maybe we should be petitioning that level of government for change? i for one have had enough of this year after year increase, its getting hard to afford or want to live in PG.

Why is it that we never ever see a politician set a tax increase within peoples capability to pay it?? I have never received a 4.2% increase at my job ever!! so why is it automatically expected I can pay a 4.2% increase for "road work"??
or an national sporting event? So let me get this straight, I am going to have to tighten my belt and eat kraft dinner, so Rogers can fill potholes, shovel snow and watch a sporting event??? Yeah maybe Mr.Rogers can tell my kids they don't get to play soccer anymore because it snowed last year, and because "other" peoples kids want to play sports...well done Dan you stupid &^%$!!!

I sure am getting extremely tired of this mayor and council. I hope Mayor Rogers is really happy with his $92000 per year income as it will only last til election in Nov. Same for this council that pat themselves on the back for the so called great job their doing. I did not see any mention of their proposed wage increase is that yet to come. Another tax increase to pay for this. To Bassermen you have been on taxpayer dollars long enough. Time for you to get out. Because I am on a fixed income and will be paying for the games coming here I will not be able to attend events because I have to pay all these tax increases and will not be able to afford tickets being on fixed income. Maybe with any luck mayor and council will not be able to afford since they are not gettin taxpayers dollars and EI won't allow them to afford tickets:-)

We paid about $11,000 in City taxes last year on our building and now another 4.2% on top of that. Lovely!

I have said it before and will say it again and again, cut City employee wages. I saw an ad for a city job (Labourer) starting at $26 per hour. Who else makes that in a starting position? City wages are absolutely insane; never mind the benefits they get.

I love sports and will most likely enjoy the Canada Winter Games when they are here but shouldn't the taxpayers have had a say in whether we should have submitted a bid or not. It would have been interesting to see how many supported the Games knowing how much it would cost us.

Lucky me, I don't live in the city but I'm still impacted. I volunteer at a local ski hill and now I find that I will be compelled to provide first aid when the games come. I don't support them so now my only option is to quit volunteering or be pressed into service.

These mega games all depend on one thing - volunteer labor. That's now they supposedly make money. Here's a thought - boycott. Yes, it will hurt PG huge when there isn't enough volunteers to run the games, but it'll send a message to future councils that you can't just light the building on fire and then expect everyone to come and help put it out. Does anyone remember anybody at all mentioning how much these games were going to cost everyone. They were strangely silent on that weren't they.

I've decided to sell my place & move to the country. I've had it with the city taxes. No more!!!

We need a mayor that has enough cahonnes to go into the city and swing a sword around. We have way too much administration pulling out way too much money and not being able to do anything except make rules and blockade to progress.

Danny boy, I think your time is up. Get out.

My buddy in Vancouver has a house valued at $1,000,000+ and his property taxes are $4150/yr. Another friend with a $650,000 condo pays $2700/yr....and these people are paying for the city's Olympic bills as well with these taxes.

I'd like to see a comparison of our tax increases to inflation over the past 15 yrs vs comparible cities.

Well they want 4.2 percent increase this year, last year they hiked it 3.98%. Does anyone have the stats for 2009

I don't see wages going up that much, Danny boy, your oars are not hitting the water.

Rattyboy here is one you missed. We the taxpayer will tear down the PG Hotel and cleanup the site then sell it back to Commonwealth for a bargin basement price.

Bloggers-25 Hizoner and the city-0 . Looks like you'd better get ready to kick horse turds Dano.

The Winter Games make me cranky.We needed them like a turd in a punch bowl.

We should rename P.G. to "Pigs Gorge" since the swine in council and the top city administrators seem to think that the taxpayer can seemlessly pull money out of their arses anytime the uslees mayor Rodgers and his cronies come up with another frivolous whim to feed their egos.We DO NOT NEED the winter games! We DO NOT NEED another police station! We certainly DO NOT NEED to waste anymore money or time on the downtown!

ski50 :you are on the right Track, this is one way to show not all is well.

I know, charge the folks that use the services more. Lower property taxes increase user fees. That way those that don't live in city will pay their fare share. Toll booth at city limits. Those that live outside the city limits can pay to come in.

City of PG Timmies franchise. All revenue from that location could pay for it all. No city taxes needed.

We do not need more crooked politicians with their hands in everyone's pockets. These games are supposed to flood the city with money, bull$#@!! I can see stupid land deals happening that lead to more stupid projects that we don't need and more money coming out of tax payers pockets to fund them...heres a thought take your games money and put it into budgets that are failing now!! I tell ya Backhouse must have been a freakin wizard!! He never had issues with the snow budget in his 20 years behind the mayors desk, I'm sure he had rising costs as well, maybe because he had a couple of brain cells in his head and decided rahter than to tax the arse off of everyone in town, he would just prepare for lots of snow!! what a concept in a town that gets 12 feet of snow for 6 months of the year every year since creation!!

Those that don't live in city will pay their fare share:
Let me tell you ,if you don't have the outlying Areas coming in to shop you can close halve your Stores in PG. By shopping in your City we pay City Taxes in directly , do you think we all go to Vancouver when we buy a Car or Appliances , no we buy them in PG, how about Toll Gates when you go Hunting or Fishing or getting Fire Wood ?

That's it! I'm going back to renting!! With the city continuously raising taxes who can afford to own their own place?

Don't hunt or fish or burn firewood so that would be fine with me. But good idea put a toll on firewood, hunting and fishing too. Pay for what you use.

How does buying goods in PG indirectly pay city taxes? You mean the shop keeper pays your taxes for you? LOL

Some kind of magic there.