Sherry Sethen notes that roads have been a top priority of city halls list fer the last six years. Well, duh!! Methinks getting re-elected has been on top of the list of most councillors fer the last six years. Thus ignoring the roads. Wake up time, people! Kinda late to notice the conditions of the roads now, eh Sherry? As to Brian Skakums claim that parking was scarce and that accounted for a low turn out, well Brian, I think that is a most imaginative and lame excuse. Low turnout was due to taxpayer apathy. Look that word up in the dictionary, pal.

They could have made parking in the civic center area free for the day as well....that is if they really cared....and they don't.... start saving peoples it is going to happen..... this is just window dressing and public appeasing going on......

Lack of parking!?!?! What an absolute joke! People think if they can't park at the front door there's a lack of parking. I GUARANTEE you there was hundreds of open spots within two blocks of City Hall, likely 50 within a stone's throw. God forbid of you had to walk across the street or pay the exorbinant fee of 50 cents for the entire day!

Solution: Gas tax of .02 per litre of fuel in the regional district.

Lets take it out of the pocket of the gas companies.

In Atlantic Canada they pay PST on their gas, and we don't. In Vancouver they pay a .06 per litre transit tax for public transit improvements. In Quebec they pay 7.5% provincial sales tax per litre, plus and additional .015 transit tax.

We with a refinery in town pay the same if not more than all those places pay at the pump. Is that difference all just cream on the top for the gas companies?

If so why not take a third of the cream from the top for our local road improvements?

Also we need to hold the federal and provincial politicians to account. If we pay .10 cents per litre for federal road improvements, and a further .145 cents per litre for provincial road improvements, than how come we can't get more than 5% of that returned to improve our local roads? That is .245 cents per litre every time you fuel up ($24.50 per week for myself) that should be going to improve the roads you drive on, which instead goes to pay for things like the 2010 Olympic committee, hand outs to corporations, and politician pay raises, and....

There is little or no time to come up with new or improved ideas to collect money for road improvements. If the City can divide everybody and have them run around **willy nilly**, then within the next few months they will implement the 4% levy and that will be that. Therefore it is imperative that all concerned taxpayers get off their collective butts and get to the last session to-morrow night and express their dislike for any further tax increases.

The number one message that should be sent to City Hall is that they should get no more tax money for any reason, and that they will have to come up with the $2.35 Million by continuing to borrow, or by finding the money somewhere else in the system.

Options:
(1) Reduce costs through staff reductions etc; As an example we have a population of 77000 people and we have 123 Police Officers. Nanaimo has a population of 78000 people and have 114 Police Officers. Is there room here for some cuts?

(2) City presently gives $550,000.00 out of the Terasen Gas Lease in Lease out agreement to road rehabilitation, and at the same time puts approx $1,850,000.00 into the Terasen Legacy Reserve. Should we increase the amount from say $550,000.00 to $1,000,000.00 and put less into the legacy fund.?

(3) Citys portion of revenue from gambling is approx $1,300,000.00 per year. This money presenlty goes into Capital Projects. It should be redirected into a road rehabilation fund.

(4) The new Police Station should be put on hold, and at best should be renovated to a level that will suffice for the next 10/15 years. This will reduce the need to borrow $18 Million for this building and assume $4 Million for reno's would leave $14 Million not borrowed which over time would be a huge savings in interest rates.

(5) Garbage collection was to save us $175,000.00 per year. If these savings actually exist, they should go to roads.

(6)Investment Earnings by the City of funds invested in the Municipal Finance Authority for 2005 were 1.4 Million in 2005 compared to 2.1 Million in 2004. Cant some of this money go into road improvements???

(7)The Citys Principal long-term debt (including capital leases) outstanding at the end of 2005 was $117.8 Million of which $61 Million is the Teresan lease agreement. Without the lease we are still 56 Million in debt. This would be a per capita debt of $717.00 . I beleive the per capita dept for Nanaimo is $194.00. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. If we include Teresan then our per capita debt would be $1500.00

(8) We need a moratorium on Capital Projects, and we need an in depth analysis of the Cities spending and debt.

The City states that the average cost of the road rehabilitation will be $55.75 per year per taxpayer. This may be true insofar as averages go, but here is some information for you.

Assessed Value of Home
155,000.00 Levy $58.02
185,000.00 $69.25
225,000.00 $84.22
325,000.00 $121.65
425,000.00 $159.08

It goes up from there however Im sure that you get my point.

At an average of $55.75 per taxpayer this would mean additional taxes of approx $35,000,000.00 over 15 years, not to mention the other increases that I am sure are in the works.

Its time for some action. You have an opportunity to get to the Civic Centre to-morrow night and vent your spleen. If you dont then you only have yourself to blame.

$35,000,000/($55.75 X 15) = 41,853.51 taxpayers ......

Given that the business owners also pay into the system and have a different average assessment ...

How did you come up with that as the number of taxpayers? I am assuming they are single family residential property owner taxpayers.

Sort of simplistic. However, it does point out that over 15 years the order of magnitude for road repairs will be about that and more. In fact, over 30 years it will more than double to over $70 million.

Just think of how much our houses will be worth in 15 years ..... 30 years .....

much less than now unless we put improvements into those as well ..... :-)

Are these meaningless calculations? You bet they are.

No matter how you slice it, the roads have to be fixed, and snow has to be removed from them and sand has to be put on them and sand and other dirt has to be swept off them again and it will all cost money.

The questions ought to be (but aren't):

1. do you want to borrow the money or do you want to pay for it now?

2. then, the next part comes, will the money which has to be paid come from tax increase or from tightening the belt?

My answer to 1 is pay for it now. My answer for 2 is, tighten the belt.

It is the second question which city hall has not asked. City hall is not prepared to tighten the belt.

Since I have stated on here vefore that I am all for paying more taxes for services, I am prepared to get into a belt tightening exercise because I have this feeling that we are not getting value for our money.

I am only prepared to spend money if I know where it is going and it is being spent wisely. Right now, I just do not trust the system anymore.

" rehabilitation levy drew more than double last night’s attendance of 20..."

Did we ever bust our ass on that one. And Mr Harding is going to be hit for $200.00 That is good news. Its time those cheap skates that live in the 3000+ sq ft homes started to pay their way.

It will only cost me $58.00 out of my pension income. I'm going back to tonights session and suggest that the City put a levy on homes being built of more then 1200 sq ft. Say like $20,000.00 per home. Maybe they wiill stop crying about pot holes.

There are other more serious problems that concern safety like curbing and lane markings that never seem to last a season. The intersections are poorly lit and at some it is difficult to see where the curbing is. It has been erroded by salt to the point that its hard to see. The ashphalt sidewalks That us poor people walk on are a disgrace.

Cheers

Owl. I came up with the number by dividing the total cost of $2.35M by the Cities average cost of $55.75 which of course is misleading because it didnt break out the industry portion, however the point I was trying to make was that the City uses the $55.75 average per year to indicate a low number rather than showing the actual cost over a 15 year period. When they show you the savings by paying this tax upfront rather than through financing they show it over 15 years so that they get a big **savings** number.

Here is a better breakdown.
Residential $1,245,470.00

Business/other $591,281.00
Light Industry $38,480.00
Major Industry $433,219.00
Utility Co.,s $39,953.00
Other $1,597.00

Total $2,350,000.00

$1,245,470.00 divided by average $55.75 would be 22,340 residential taxpayers, however even this number is misleading because.
(a) Apartments and mobile homes are included in the **light industry** or **Business** number, and
unless you know the assessment against the business and the portion of this assessement that is passed on in the form of rent or pad charges you cannot determine how much a person living in an apartment will pay versus a home owner, even though they both drive a car.

(b) Anyone living in ilegal suites will be exempt from this tax.

(c) A single person owning a house with an
assessed value of $150,000.00 will pay a levy of $56.15 per year, even if they have no vehicle. A married
couple with the same home and two vehicles would pay $28.07 each. If they had two children with their own cars living at home then they would pay $14.03 each.

This can hardly be considered as a fair levy against all users. The bulk of the residential cost will be paid by property owners, and those who live in trailer courts, apartments, etc; will pay somewhat less, however they will enjoy the same roads. Much like those in the Regional District who use the roads, and facilities in the City as much as those living in the City but they do not pay for the upkeep of these facilities or roads.

If the City would find the money within their present budget to service roads, which is what we have been paying taxes for over the past years, then this problem would go away. The problem is created by to much borrowing, and to many expensive Capital Projects, that cost big dollars to keep running after they are built. These were all built at the expense of one of the fundemental necessitys of a City **Roads** How long do you think they could have pulled off the type of underfunding it they had applied it to Water, Garbage, or Snow Removal. Not very long, but they did it with underfunding the roads and now because they **screwed up** they want us to bail them out. Whats new?

regarding a tax of fuel:

Is the levey to be on the fuel at the pumps? If so industry will not be paying it share as most have their own tanks.

Also it is my understanding that we do pay PST on our fuel, atleast when we bought bulk fuel from one company, the break down was fuel,PST and GST.

I have just come in from pounding the pavement and here is option (d) (has also been called option 4). The environment is foremost all all our minds these days so we could kill two birds with one stone and here is what I have come up with:
(1) A levy of $20,000 and this can be increased if needed on all new homes over 1200 sq ft.

(2) a municipal licence on passenger vehicles like suv’s and light trucks. If you can afford to drive these vehicles you may as well start contributing to the environment.

Cheers

Kimbo your out to lunch on that one.

Kagee, we do not pay PST on our gasoline in BC. We do pay GST on our gasoline however on top of the fixed gasoline taxes of .245 for a total tax of around .30 per litre.

Yes the levy would be at the pump, but collected by the refinery for ease of accounting.

Only Quebec east pay PST on their gasoline. They still pay the same price at the pump in those provinces however, because the petroleum companies lower their margin to keep prices consistant with the national average at the pump.

That is why Vancouver has a 6 cent transit tax yet pays the same sometimes less than us at the pump.

At 2 cents it would add up to about $2 dollars a week for the average large truck owner. So at most a large truck owner would pay $102 dollars a year, and a small car owner about $25 dollars a year.

I figure this would add up to about $20-30 million a year in revenue that if directed towards local roads could be used to finance the city portion of the ring road PG so desperately needs for the future as well as the new bridge and general upkeep and maintenance.

If we as a region can collect our 2 cents and use that to match the federal and provincial governments, they would have no arguement not to match the funding with the 24.5 cents that they collect on the same volume of fuel for road improvements. It would give a really clear idea of how much we are subsidizing the federal and provincial government with our road taxes on fuel.

In Vancouver and Montreal they call it a transit tax for public transit. I believe in PG the same concept could be used for public roads until such time as we become a city where public transit investments begin to make more sense.

Under this plan it would make sense to remove roads from the city budget with a corresponding reduction in city taxes, and make the road authority funded by the fuel tax the sole agency responsible for roads.

The idea to tax home owners for the road budget with a surplus tax is the idea that we should tax home owners for everything, and when they get old and can not afford addition home owner taxes, they then lose their house to the tax man for defaulting on home ownership taxes. IMO that idea goes against everything a free society stands for.

I do not like to see homes taxes for things not related to the home and its services.

Chader, I see I have lots of company along with smoke and no fire. Oh well talk is cheap.

Cheers

Have a look at the front page of the Citizen today.

Arena clock on it's way. "The total project cost has jumped to about $1 million from the original estimate of $850,000, (now get this) with the extra $150,000 coming out of the city's capital expenditure reserve".

A Million bucks for a clock for watching replays of our sorely supported hockey team. Give your heads a shake folks. This clock can't be more important than our roads. Can it? Chester

Chester. Wait till you hear how much it will cost the City to run this clock. I would suggest not less that $200,000.00 per year, unless they can train the Zamboni drivers to operate the replay board.