I just want to point out that in my opinion the current City Hall senior staffing levels are way to high and administration costs are through the roof, every year taxpayers are subjected to increases in their taxes but the only thing that increases along with them is the Admin pay raises.
This current Mayor and at least half of council talk a great talk about listening to the tax payer before making decisions but in the end it is just smoke and mirrors, they go on with a pre determined path guided by a top heavy administration. An example of this is both the decision on the proposed fire hall location and the supposed ” listening to public input” on the budget and tax increases.
The City piggy backs every year on higher and higher property assessments yet still see the need to increase every year the tax rate, financially the only people in my opinion benefitting from the tax increase are the pay cheques of the bureaucrats at City Hall. There is little or no concern for people on fixed incomes by this Mayor and Council, pretty near as I see it, the people making the financial decisions at city hall are all in a high income family, they have no idea on how people have to exist on small pensions or minimum wages, none what so ever.
It is time that Administration costs are brought under control, we have most of senior staff earning well over $100K a year, a Mayor pulling over $50K and councillors pulling $20 K a year, time to thin the herd, the tax payer tree has run out of fruit. The proposed new fire hall is only going to put a further burden on the taxpayers, the only hope we have is that the proposal to borrow the money has to go to referendum and hopefully we can bring this administration back down to earth by defeating the referendum, we seem to be managing quite well with the current system.
David R Gildea
Fernie. BC