Editor, The News:
Several articles and opinions in The News during the past couple of months have shed yet more light on the real problem behind the Pitt Meadows tax increase issue.
The front-page article “Pitt taxes going up” (Nov. 30) points out the lack of any effort by the mayor and council to budget as citizens have asked.
The well-thought out News Views editorial (Dec. 5) illustrates that the real problem is not the costs, but the elected officials who have shown themselves to be incapable of fiscal responsibility.
One resident has written a couple of times that those opposed to increased taxes should offer solutions. I fail to see why the residents should have to do the work that the mayor and council members were elected – and are being well paid by us – to do.
Are the residents supposed to take upon themselves the work of the firefighters, police and civic employees, too?
The mayor also dismisses the issue of refusing to increase her own salary, again. This year it is reported to have risen to $66,081.
The mayor and council annually vote themselves increases as a matter of course.
Most of us would relish a situation where we can increase our salary as we please (even when we can’t do the job to begin with), while those paying it have no input into the matter, other than voicing their distaste at such nonsense.
The low public turnout at the December budget meeting (“Pitt Meadows likes Ridge’s social media experiment,” Dec. 14) caused Mayor Walters to comment: “It was quite disappointing because we were all ready for input.”
That is hypocritical.
Money was spent for a telephone survey of residents that identified taxes and city spending as top concerns, but the mayor ignored that.
And when 1,300 residents took the time to add their names to a petition calling for zero tax increases, this mayor waved them aside as irrelevant and unreliable.
Now she maintains she is not getting input.
Obviously, she doesn’t like the input she is receiving, hence she ignores it.
When citizens sign a petition, they are using their democratic right to voice their opinion. The fact that it is on a petition and not in an individual letter is of no consequence; the individuals have expressed their views.
For any elected official to suggest that such views are not worth considering is the height of arrogance.
Mayor Walters will likely listen to certain individuals.
“A question of influence” (The News, Nov. 1) noted the amounts of money paid out to certain members of council, including an unbelievable (at the municipal level) $10,000 to Ms. Walters alone from people connected to the Cardiff development.
Too bad we don’t have recall at the municipal level.
Byron Hosking
Pitt Meadows