By Joe Machial
I was very shocked and angry to learn that Town Council’s plans to incrementally increase taxes over the next 4 years has nothing to do with reducing how much we have to pay for increased RCMP costs when Oliver’s population exceeds 5000 people. When the Mayor was quoted in local media as saying:
“Council is acting very intelligently… Preparing for the increase now will result in a softer hit later.”
I assumed the increase in taxes today would go towards future policing costs so we would not need to pay a significant amount later. When a councillor was quoted saying,
“…the Town has to start putting money away in order to avoid the big hit in RCMP costs, which will jump to 70% in 2022.”
I assumed “putting money away in order to avoid the big hit in RCMP costs” meant putting money away so we would pay less in 2022. I did not think “putting money away” meant spending the money on other things today and paying more for police later.
The issue I have with increased RCMP costs is that my taxes are going up. Charging us more taxes today so we have a small tax increase from 2021 to 2022 is not reducing the financial burden on us citizens, it is adding to it.
Saying that the tax increases from 2018-2021 has to do with managing our policing costs when it is really for other projects is dishonest.
The Mayor and Council should act respectfully, stop linking these taxes to our policing costs, tell us what the tax increases are really for, and let us decide at the fall election if we support Council’s plan.
Editor’s note – Letter modified for clarity