To the Editor,
RE: Have a say in how your tax dollars are spent, Letters, Feb. 16
Having just read the letter to the Alberni Valley News coined by Randy Fraser, I feel a major impulse to support his assertions wholeheartedly.
To add to his concerns, I must say that given our expenditures over the last 12 months—such as buying the Somass Mill “as is,” a commitment to create a quay to quay walkway and $75,000 to enhance the council chambers audio and video capacity—plus regular expenditures, plus the fact we have declining industry, it is amazing to me that we have not entered bankruptcy.
To pay for all this, our taxes will increase by 4.97 percent this year alone. Heaven knows how much it will cost next year when the bills come in. I am wondering how many people in this valley have received a five percent increase in pay this year.
I have enormous respect for our city councillors and I know it is a lot harder to make decisions from the ice, so to speak, than it is from the bleachers. I do wonder, though, if they realize we have declining income.
As the saying goes, “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.” My advice to councillors is to stop digging.
Ernest Burnett,
Port Alberni
