Lobby Groups Get Your Dollars:One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

    Recently we dealt with the matter of increasing our taxes in order to fix our city streets.

While it was not as if we didn’t have sufficient money in the city coffers years before to carry out that exercise but rather, what priorities we had put on the issue.

But the roads of the city are not alone, we will in the future be called upon to subsidize the new sports center at UNBC.  Now you might argue that it will attract new students and be of benefit for those who take part in the indoor events.

The reality is however that soccer is the sport with the largest involvement of participants in the city. It is a sport that, no matter what the age, no matter what your financial position, every one can take part.

It is not a sport in which only those gifted few can take part.

Last year walking across the road to the field was a young child from a single parent family; behind her came a young child from a family in which the father is a leading physician in the city. Equipment costs  do  not pose a barrier to participants, the children from these two differing income brackets are equal on the field.

Soccer in this city is an excellent example of getting the best bang for your tax paying bucks.

Unfortunately minorities with strong political connections are able to influence where the taxpayers money should go.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion

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