To the Editor,
Paid parking at the marina AKA the delusion of competence continues.
Let’s start by putting one thing to bed. Shaking the same money tree to knock more leaves off it is not tapping a new revenue stream”, by any stretch of the imagination. If you believe that you are the sap we are being played for.
So, let’s do some math.
Single family mean average home tax increase is to be $184, approximately, for the 2024 taxation year. Plus for the next 6 months they want us to pay an additional $80 to use a park we already paid, for at least 20 years, to access 4 hours per day.
A 5.48% tax increase for the same 6 months is $184/2= $92 on the average house. Now add to that an $80 parking pass.
So, for the next six months, it will cost $172 to pay the taxes plus park at a citizens-owned asset. So that equates to an increase of 5.48 per cent and 5.32 per cent, or 10.8 per cent just to keep the basics of what we already had paid to create.
Then add the 1.2 per cent increase for the carrying forward of the home for the aged debenture, if transparency truly mattered, your final tax rate increase will be 12 per cent for those six months. And don't forget the losses that will be incurred by the free all-day passes handed out to the special interest groups because of their enjoyment factor meaning far more than those, who also paid, for the facility, given away before one penny had been collected.
A councillor tried to employ some grade 5 math with a compromise and suggested that those purchasing the, optional, all-day pass will be paying 50 cents per day to park at the Marina rather than $2.50 per day at the parkade.
The concept was to make it more equitable but still quite a substantial saving, bringing an all-day pass up to $210. It still only equalled $1 per day. But this lost in a tie, showing me that 50% of council failed Grade 5 math.
Secondly, I believe this concept of paid parking at a public facility has nothing to do with bringing Thunder Bay in line with other communities. It shows a complete lack of reasonable concepts of fiscal prudence.
If you want to compare, then it must be asked how many of the comparators have publicly owned utilities, supplying revenue in the form of dividends to the corporate coffers. Not bringing that up in the discussion means you are simply deluding yourself and making a false statement.
Thirdly, when this council and current administration talks sustainability a chill runs up and down my spine from my wallet to the hairs on the back of my neck.
Revenue is a tool required to yield a "return on investment,” not just to burn in a pile with no return.
Is this just another make-work project attempting to justify our bloated bureaucracy? When will the leaders in this community start talking about “return on investment”?
Yes, this is a citizen-owned corporation devised to run the business of the city. “Citizens own it” without citizens it is non-existent. The corporation's purpose is to use revenue generated to ensure a reasonable return on the investment made by its shareholders, the citizens.
As the "board of directors," council's job is to ensure that “best” return on investment is brought to the shareholder by the corporation, not light the bonfire.
We have needed for some time a new thought process based on true transparency not the delusions of the same repeat offences against the owners being called fiscal prudence.
Doubling and tripling the bureaucracy with zero return on the investment is not competence by any stretch of the imagination.
I welcome the changing of the guard but question if the wherewithal will be there to do the true restructuring needed that the shell game so far has not provided.
Time will tell.
Vern Seymour
Thunder Bay
