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With the Holiday season behind us City Hall is back into full swing. We
will have a new Director of Planning starting at the end of this month
and his name is Hap Stelling. Hap comes to us from New Brunswick. The
amount of development that we know is being proposed for the coming
years has prompted us to do a review of this department and extra
horsepower is needed in the day to day operations, as well as
streamlining processes and also to give us the capacity to do some long
range planning. I look forward to Hap and his family becoming a part of
our community and Hap bringing his expertise on board at City Hall.
The new property
assessments are out and it always tends to create some confusion.
Increased assessed value does not automatically mean increased taxes.
The City generates tax revenues by multiplying assessment values by the
tax rate (or what used to be called the mill rate). If assessments go up
the tax rate goes down to produce the same taxes as last year. If your
assessment goes up by more than the average then you will pay more taxes
than last year. If your assessment goes up by less than the average you
will pay less tax than last year. Assessments for residential class 1 on
average went up by 32.42% this year, with business class 6 going up
8.86%. Remember it is the BC Assessment Authority that sends out and
calculates the assessments.
Since we are trying to
set the record straight on a few issues:
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The City is not borrowing millions of dollars to build a wooden
bridge across the Illecillewaet River. We do borrow money on a short
term basis at this time of year because we collect the majority of
our funds (taxes) in July.
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We
are also looking at building a pedestrian/emergency bridge to hook
up to the greenway in conjunction with the Mark Kingsbury
foundation.
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The indoor pool roof is not leaking but because of a design flaw the
tot’s pool is getting some repairs.
I was extremely
disappointed with the Architectural firm of Vic Davies and Associates
starting a lawsuit over design fees and the construction cost overruns.
We feel we paid a fair price for all of the work performed and the
matter is in the hands of the City’s lawyers. I will keep the community
posted as this unfolds.
The first weekend in
February, Staff and Council will be having an all day retreat. We will
be talking and planning the projects and goals for the coming year. As
well we will spend time on long term projects that we want to work
towards for the future.
If you want to provide
your input on any City issue or facility you can take part in the
City’s Online Survey. We also
have a
Retail Survey that is being conducted right now. I know staff is
always approachable, especially when it comes to explaining items
relative to their department. Feel free to give them a call.
Mark McKee
Mayor
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