Posts
From what I have been able to surmise, the only thing substantive that was achieved is our local poor now owe more to the municipality than they did before. Thanks, I suggest, to this council's brain-dead, politically charged and motivated attack against victims of alleged fraudsters in residential land development deals here, supported and promoted by a former mayor and his hood-winked councils.
Pouring good money after bad was not in the cards for these investors for a variety of reasons, including on-going legal court proceedings. This should have been obvious to our council, if they had even an infinitesimal iota of common-sense or due diligence in having taken the time to talk with these people. Using a hammer to attack victims (due in large part to our own creation) while creating even more victims in the process by attacking our local poor, subjecting them to even greater financial hardship, is what our elected municipal representatives did. Shame on them!
I have been quoted before as saying; this will be a one-term council. Unless they rescind this abomination of a Bylaw, I personally will do what I can to make certain this becomes a reality. They can take that to the bank!
Note: For more reading on this subject in chronological order from earliest to latest, go here...
Timing is everything
'Scrooge' has no better friend than Crowsnest Pass council
"It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for."
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
Sphere: Related Content
11 comments:
This council makes me think of the one we had some years back made up of teachers. Nothing much got accomplished with them either in that they too treated their positions as an opportunity to dine out on the taxpayer dime, doing precious little to earn it while turning their noses up at the great unwashed.
It seems for the majority being a glutton for punishment is a requirement for residency here.
4:35
The likes of Prince and Ward would have changed things here for sure but the elites would have none of it. The majority being the sheep they are and as the previous commentator said being "glutton for punishment" voted instead for more of the same old same old while continuing to complain on how things never change here.
Makes one shake their head, doesn't it?
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
They've been doing that here for some time.... soon only the rich will be able to live here.
Even some rich are moving away as it is getting too expensive to live here for what little you get in the way of services and facilities. Some country residential areas pay in excess of $5,000/yr and don't even get their roads plowed in winter, or oiled in summer.
Ann
It ain't fair or right what they done. I agree with Prince, council should rescind this bylaw.
John, do you have any data to show that the people in tax arrear situations are poor seniors? If that is the case, then I am sympathetic to your position. However, if it's mostly people who are quite capable of paying their taxes, and are just playing the system, then I say hammer them with the penalty. If not, then it's the rest of us who end up paying more.
Anon @4:35
"It seems for the majority being a glutton for punishment is a requirement for residency here."
I like that and believe recent history here with respect to our municipal elections shows this to be so true. ;-)
Anon @4:49
If elected I could have taken this community all the way to the Super Bowl. :-) But instead they are still stuck in their own end zone, lacking even a Dean to take them to the fifty yard line as he and his brave horsemen successfully managed to do when in office.
Anon @5:59
"Legalized Robbery" is what we have had here for some time and now with council's Tax Penalty Bylaw that should be clear for even the blind to see. 'Extortion' and 'Rape' of our most disadvantaged and vulnerable are words that come to mind here with respect to this Bylaw.
Ann,
That is one of the biggest complaints I have heard over the years, that far too many people here pay so much and yet receive so little. It's a wonder we still have different social/economic classes living here when the reality is that the way things have been going soon only the rich will be able to afford to live here.
Anon @6:51
Ah, a man after my own heart. Rescind this Bylaw and do it now should be the mantra on every decent, caring residents lips in this community. For if the greedy, selfish and cynical say nothing as they are prone to do, while good people do likewise, then they win. Emboldened they will try again and again until one day they are in your pockets too, but by that time there will probably be no one willing to stand up for you. So do the right thing and add your voice to the chrous of people demanding fairness by council in rescinding this abomination of a Bylaw.
Anon @9:10
It would stand to reason that the people who cannot pay their bills are poor, period. Seniors or otherwise, it does not matter they are poor. I suggest no one deliberately does not pay their bill knowing they face a penalty of 21% or even 52%. So I don't think there is any game playing here, other than a callous council who thought they were being cute and clever only to have it backfire on them, and now it will be them who will pay the ultimate penalty come next election time.
Note: Thank you all for your comments.
JP
9:10 The municapality always gets there money, always. How is "playing the system" hurting the municapality, they currently collect all taxes plus 21% and under the new bylaw it will be over 50% for the late payers. I do not see any advantage to not paying your taxes on time.Maybe you can explain how it is to the taxpayers advantage to put off paying there taxes?
"Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery."
These days, we the public, have more to fear from those in government than we do from the crooks on the street. Crooks on the street are far and in-between, while government in your face and in your pocket seems to be everywhere.
JP
Hilarious.
John, Do you think that the town wants these properties that are in arrears? Would they want to sell them? Would it be worth it in the long run for the town to own these properties?
Post a Comment