Rare Agreement with P.G. Mayor: One Man's Opinion

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 03:44 AM

It can be said that I don’t often agree with Mayor Colin Kinsley on much but in the case of two items that came before City Council this week, there is common ground.

The first deals with the Mayor trying to convince the Performing Arts Society that the first step would be to carry out an assessment on the demand for such a facility. For example, would Theatre Northwest and other groups move over to a new facility or would perhaps costs to use the facility lead to them to stay put?

The Arts Community goes to the polls and it showed in the vote last night. They are asking for $160,000 dollars. Council members were all over them trying to find the money to hand it out last night, the Mayor was making a point, put togther a business plan then see where we go from there.

That wasn’t happening at Council last night and it should have.

Yes the momentum is up for a new facility, but let’s get the ducks all in the row before we make the fatal leap. The move by the Mayor doesn’t shut the proposal down. It is a common practice for businesses, take RONA for example, They won't set up in the city until they have a business plan of whether the project will go. This week, Council seemed to be trying to circumvent that process.

The second matter was the resolution on the gas tax.

Two resolutions had been presented by Council for submission to this fall's UBCM convention. One called on the feds and the province to give the city taxing authority to add more taxes to the price of gas. The second called on the feds and the province to hand over some of that tax that is already being collected.

Kinsley argued that we shouldn’t be asking the feds or the province for taxing authority until we have argued with them about giving us some of the money back they have been taking in gas taxes.

It was a reasonable argument.

The Council of the day would also be wise to think about that first resolution (which has now been scrapped) We have just had a tax boost to cover the repairs on our roads, throw another tax at the pumps and a few of you folks had better begin making plans with what you will do with your time after the next civic election.

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

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Posted on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 03:44 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: Wileycoyote on July 25 2007 7:03 AM

oh yes lets add more city taxes by adding a gas tax... oh please oh please... oh god.................

Posted by: metalman on July 25 2007 9:26 AM

Yes, tax us some more, we still have a few cents left over. Then vote yourselves a raise in pay, you deserve it!
metalman.

Posted by: Gofaster on July 25 2007 2:01 PM

I too , for once in a long time agree with Mr Kinsley.
With three other theaters in town surely the perfoming arts society could get stage time in at least one of these venues.
Or maybe all of them could get together and build one huge theater?
$160 thousand , for a study????
that is a lot of money.....
maybe it would be better to put this into enlarging the size of the Playhouse or?????

Posted by: Chadermando on July 25 2007 5:10 PM

I would rather accept a gas tax than a home tax, but the question is how can we assure that the money collected from gas taxes actually goes into road work. Right now the gas taxes fund the provincial and federal governments and very little goes to road work and that is what is not acceptable IMO.

Right now the price of gas should be .95 cents a litre at most with over .30 cents going to gas taxes. The gas tax is high enough to fund roads, but is diverted to other slush funds. The oil companies sell the gas for $1.20 making a .25 cent monoploy profit that they get away with because the governemnt gets to collect more gas taxes for their slush fund and that is another major problem.

Personally I support consumption taxes over the home tax and the income tax. That way the tax is voluntary and those that need to save can save and those that want to spend and pay taxes spent and pay taxes.

Posted by: Wileycoyote on July 25 2007 8:05 PM

So my transportation business will have to pay more taxes to support another theater in town that I will support no more than I already do support yet will add to the bottom line of my business? I cant quite figure that one out. Gas taxes to fix the road yes I can swallow that one as I'll be spending less money replacing Tie-rods and Ball joints and Blow-outs because of our shoddy roads but increased fuel expenses to support a new playhouse, that I cant quite get over.

Posted by: snappi on July 25 2007 9:46 PM

I personally don't want to pay any more taxes, period. We are taxed to death aleady. No wonder we have so many seniors that can't afford to eat, they gave all their money to the tax collectors.

Posted by: Chester on July 25 2007 9:55 PM

I refuse to support any proposal to allow our city council the authority to add yet another tax on our already high priced fuel costs. They haven't proven to me that they are financially responsible with the money they already have to manage.

I find it absolutely incredible that anyone would even suggest such a bonehead idea. Thank you Mayor Kinsley for re-thinking this one. Chester