Editor, The News:
Re: Maple Ridge tax rate to rise 3.9 per cent (The News, Dec. 5).
Why is it necessary to increase our property taxes every, single year?
Again, I see The News reports that Maple Ridge council is looking for a tax increase of 3.9 per cent for 2013.
And, once again, I, and others who reside in this once quaint town will put pen to paper, so to speak, and express our disappointment with those we have entrusted with the public purse.
Why is it we never see a decrease in these burdensome tax increases?
We write to the media, our letters are published and for some strange reason, nobody at municipal hall is getting the message of our disappointment in the caliber of public officials, in their inability to hold down costs.
One would think the more development of housing the more individual property parcels contributing to the tax base, therefore reducing the burden on existing taxpayers.
Another point which appears to be lost on our high-paid bureaucrats is the fact that public salaries for city bureaucrats are rising, while private enterprise salaries have been falling for years now.
Good paying industrial and manufacturing jobs are becoming a fading memory of past generations.
You know the type of work I am referring to: the job where only one person needed to work and that was sufficient to raise a family.
Now, the private enterprise jobs are mainly in the tourism and service industry. I don’t need to tell you those wages are not sufficient to support even a single person, let alone a family.
Society’s idea of appropriate remuneration has turned Topsy Turvy over the past 25 years and the high-paid bureaucrats have not figured that out yet.
Municipal hall must understand that one cannot get more and more taxes every year.
I constantly hear from politicians that ‘if you want to hire the best people you must offer them the best salaries.’ That may be true, but if we have the best bureaucrats, then our annual property taxes would be going down, not up.
Thank, God, for people like Couns. Corisa Bell and Cheryl Ashlie. At least they are asking the tough questions.
Mike Boileau
Maple Ridge