Open letter to Whitehorse Mayor Bev Buckway and councillors:
It is with deep sorrow that I returned to Whitehorse the other day to find out the city is again raising our residential tax base by four per cent plus the increase in messing with our property assessments for a total increase of who knows what amount.
On top of this, you are proposing a 17.23 per cent increase in our utility fees, after promising no future increase from the 15 per cent last year on top of several previous yearly increases.
How much money do you need to operate and maintain our water, sewer and garbage facilities?
Are you grossly negligent in performing your duties within the millions you now tax and fee your residents?
Since this administration has taken hold of the city coffers, taxes and utilities have increased every year. Where are the savings from far less snow removal and lowered energy costs this winter? Or does each department have to spend all their allotted budget to demonstrate they will need more dollars than they got last year?
It has become quite obvious these particular city administrators do not have any fiscal management skills but to tax and gouge.
And this council, which basically has been the same barons since this management team took control, appears not have the intestinal fortitude, nor, dare I say, the vision, to rein in these bureaucrats.
Oh, you will have all kinds of excuses and blame to go ahead with what you claim is necessary, but you will go ahead as always with gouge, screw and tax because it’s policy and it’s all you appear to understand.
It has become reality that you have no empathy for the not-so-privileged or non-elite citizens who do not work for the city or some other form of government in Whitehorse (for whom unions continue to escalate wages in hard times and so exacerbate this vicious tax cycle).
Surely you must realize that all these increases you have excused through your past years impact the bottom line for the working poor. With rents and energy costs continually on the rise, you are making it no longer possible for some of your citizens to afford to live in Whitehorse (probably not part of the 30 per cent voting multitude who gave you your democratic mandate).
Roger Rondeau, Utilities Consumers’ Group, Whitehorse