To the editor:
As I knock on the doors of our fine residents' homes, I am finding that my competition is advising people we are in financial trouble as a city.
Nothing could be further from the truth! When Mr. Boshcoff was mayor back in 2002 and 2003, our debt climbed and capital spending decreased. That trend continued over the next several years.
This council, over the past four years, has reversed that trend. Since 2009 we have paid down $23 million of debt. We are putting more money into roads than any time in our history. While we are doing that our sound financial management has allowed us to move our credit rating from A+ to AA- a jump of two ranks.
This credit rating had not changed from 1997 until this term of council. Record-building permits (in excess of $600 million), new hotels and businesses, $2.1 million in new assessment growth just last year. Those are facts, ladies and gentlemen not fiction.
Mr. Boshcoff says we can do better. This from a man that missed the two most important weeks of budget deliberations at committee of the whole and then criticized the budget.
I encourage residents to get the facts on taxes and compare 2010 to 2014 increases to those from 2000 to 2003. We have kept increases lower when you factor in what we have spent on our crumbling infrastructure. This Council has produced under my Leadership! I can't blame Mr. Boshcoff for wanting to inherit all the good things we have done financially but we really need to stay the course and continue to move forward and not backwards in time.
Keith Hobbs
Mayoral candidate,
Thunder Bay
