Vernon Property Tax Increase

[dontrump]

That's the nature of services. Everyone is willing to forego services that they don't use. This is exactly the purpose of government - to implement the services that benefit society as a whole, and not one selfish person's needs.

well maybe that was the socialist ideology in the beginning but its now moved far away from that;; here we are 2020 and 3 people on a fifty passenger bus? how does this system benefit society as a whole when .0001% are getting a benefit yet 65% are paying for such programs

[tabubil]

Well I have more to say. A must read for all are these two articles on Castanet Tuesday Nov 17
https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/31 ... ter-system
It would be interesting to see if this was already calculated in proposed budget or if this is going to add to 4.74 tax increase. I hope that all the infrastructure tax fund we have been paying into for many years, and never had a report on how much was spent and on water projects and were they for old pipes or to repair breaks?
It would be nice if the city would make available all the information gathered from pipe inspections so the public could see how old the pipes in their area are and if they need replacing.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/31 ... d-spillway
Then there is the on going problem with the Duteau Creek water filtration plant now it appears the dam above is in poor condition. It would be interesting to know if when this project was planned if they knew that this dam was in poor condition and if not why was it not checked by professional engineers. Do we not have engineers whose job it is to check that drawings for major projects are correct and things like the dam is a danger and that the plant is the most modern?
Now it seems that besides picking up glass in recycle they are thinking of picking up food recyclables.
It would be nice to know how much more these three items will add to our property taxes, infrastructure tax or cost of using water in Vernon. We already pay one of the highest water rates in the province. We are doing this while paying off the state of art water filtration system, we have added several upgrades now we have bad pipes and a dam the could break and shutdown the entire system.
I think the time has come for city to rein in spending and see what effect this pandemic is going to have on federal and provincial taxes and then have a referendum to see what work the taxpayers want to have done and pay for. We must also leave the reserve fund alone.

[common_sense_guy]

Didn't you just get six or seven or eight new police. Was that not a topic discussion a while back. Well there's your increasing taxes. Do you feel safer now with them like a lot of you thought you would? Did you notice your crime went down after they hired them?

[nicholas p]

Didn't you just get six or seven or eight new police. Was that not a topic discussion a while back. Well there's your increasing taxes. Do you feel safer now with them like a lot of you thought you would? Did you notice your crime went down after they hired them?

Do you know where did those 6 or 8 new police officers go? They were hired to do foot patrol in down town in taxpayers money so that business owners can feel safe not residents of Vernon.

[Chyren]

One of the topics that seems to be missing is basic accounting.

1) Expenses. They go up every year period. If you have a zero percent tax increase and the cost of everything due to inflation rises then expenses will go up. Just take something as simple as lumber. It has exploded in price and that's just one example.

2) Policing costs. The city of Vernon has grown a lot in the last four years. The ratio's rise between police per 100,000 people. If the city grows the costs associated with policing, just on a personnel issue, will rise.

3) Utilities. They are expensive to maintain and solid planning will be able to keep up with a lot of the aging infrastructure but if you want water when you turn on your taps and ahem flush, then understand that things will break and often times when stuff was put there 40 years ago you will eventually have to replace them.

This isn't a "bad council" thing or a "bad mayor" thing, this is the reality that they inherit and as leaders must work to fix often times for the next council.

Common sense really.

To go after the apparent faceless "supervisors and bosses" really shows some kind of deep resentment from posters about people that are educated and trained to do a highly specific job for communities. They deserve to be paid for what they do and to simply blame them for a tax increase is really missing the point. Often I find in these arguments it's the "I make X" and am upset that "they make X+1" more than me so they have to go. They pay taxes too.

[nicholas p]

One of the topics that seems to be missing is basic accounting.

1) Expenses. They go up every year period. If you have a zero percent tax increase and the cost of everything due to inflation rises then expenses will go up. Just take something as simple as lumber. It has exploded in price and that's just one example.

2) Policing costs. The city of Vernon has grown a lot in the last four years. The ratio's rise between police per 100,000 people. If the city grows the costs associated with policing, just on a personnel issue, will rise.

3) Utilities. They are expensive to maintain and solid planning will be able to keep up with a lot of the aging infrastructure but if you want water when you turn on your taps and ahem flush, then understand that things will break and often times when stuff was put there 40 years ago you will eventually have to replace them.

This isn't a "bad council" thing or a "bad mayor" thing, this is the reality that they inherit and as leaders must work to fix often times for the next council.
Sorry, No one is saying tax increase due to cost increase is wrong. But just tell
i) when our engineers can't get a pole properly installed that too twice how do you expect that a building approved by them is strong enough. What action was taken against those involved including the contractor & who pays to fix third time? As Mayor is appointed to over see the expenditure he has to take responsibility same as a manager in any private company.

ii) If they couldn't maintain the policing cost without substancial increase in tax why did they hire & contract out policing of downtown? How do you justify this?
iii) When city has to build a new recreational centre for certain people for which all have to bear the cost?

To go after the apparent faceless "supervisors and bosses" really shows some kind of deep resentment from posters about people that are educated and trained to do a highly specific job for communities. They deserve to be paid for what they do and to simply blame them for a tax increase is really missing the point. Often I find in these arguments it's the "I make X" and am upset that "they make X+1" more than me so they have to go. They pay taxes too.

[kiabird]

now projected to go up by approximately 2.55 per cent

https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/31 ... x-increase

[kiabird]

Council has now revised the property tax increase further downward to 2.13%.

[tabubil]

Well it looks like the mayor and council think everything is going well and the future is bring and green, well I have news for your.
I wonder if the mayor, council and city financial officers have heard what the Parliamentary Budget Office says, that they suspect the total loss of income and all the spending will cause a 1 Trillion dollar budget loss this year. He also says that the government has not plan for the economy and is still over spending.
The small business and restaurant associations think that as high as 35% of their members will fail this year.
The tourism business thinks if they recover to pre pandemic numbers it could take up to 5 years, but do not hold out much hope of this happening.
The airline industry has no idea of what is going to happen as they are asking for billions in free aid.
Many cities in Canada are facing bankruptcy this year unless budgets and staff are cut.
The provincial government is spending money wildly and they also have not recovery package planned.
The governments all tell us that employment is back to 95% of pre pandemic but look around our city I know that it might be 60% as many are still unemployed, laid off or now working part time at several jobs to make ends meet.
The only way that governments can balance budgets after all this spending is to raise taxes. This does not bother the union groups as they just go on strike and get a large wage. But what about the seniors, disabled, those getting an education and the ones that make minimum wage they get nothing only the overpaid union jobs.
I have not heard of any large companies that are hiring a massive amount of people.
Council listen and talk to the people of Vernon and do what you were elected for and make responsible decisions.

[dontrump]

Council listen and talk to the people of Vernon and do what you were elected for and make responsible decisions.

first off too many people in vernon have not a single clue and not many elected officials ever make responsible decisions

[tabubil]

Here is a again another great incidence of how our council spends our hard earned money.
I do not know if it snowed in your area on Wednesday night but here in East Hill it did not, but the city had an ATV plow out at 8:00 am plowing the snow from the multipurpose path on 35 Ave from Pleasant Valley to 27 Street but when I went out to look all he was doing was moving the air in-front of the plow.
It would be nice no know how much this imaginary clearing of snow cost us, then we should question who many paths did he do and what was the total cost but suspect the person was getting $25-30 an hour. I cannot say that it was not a contractor but even it was who at public works signed off of the spending of money.
One last final thing is that this path only runs between Pleasant Valley and 27 Street and when the did this two years back they also took away parking on the north side of the street (it still is not posted or curb marked) I can tell you those that pick up children from Bearisto school lost a lot of parking, now they use 25 street which we do not mind but it does make driving fun as the street does get crowded.
These two are just many ways our council misspends our hard earned tax money.
To all have as best a Christmas as you can be safe and stay health as my wife and I will, see you in the New Year.