Need to be more than a ‘good guy’
Dear editor: A few months ago I wrote a letter to the editor with some questions that I’ve broken down into six different letters.
To be frank, with 26 candidates stepping forward, the danger is falling into the trap of voting for someone because they are a “good guy.” Instead of “Let’s elect Bob!” let’s ask tough questions. Here goes: 1. What specific policies will you advocate to take care of Penticton’s most valuable asset, its residents?
Electing people that know nothing about setting goals in a $100-million corporation focused on services is dangerous. We need good policies, not popularity contests. Proper policies and processes must be followed if we are going to have stable taxation, our parks cared for, money spent wisely, streets cleared, infrastructure updated, etc. Popularity doesn’t pave streets.
2. What taxation policies do you propose for the distribution of taxation levies for residential, business and other property classifications?
Charting our future and making decisions requires money and someone needs to pay. Penticton’s residents have become the property tax punching bag and we now face the highest residential tax rates in the Okanagan (more on that later). It’s all because councillors elected in 2014 continued relying on an unstable, volatile Business Tax Multiplier and arbitrarily reducing it to 1.5.
Instead, the solution is to focus on stable policies such as residential pays 70 per cent of the tax and all other classes pay 30 per cent of the tax, regardless of changes in the market or the city’s tax levy requirements. In Vernon, residential pays 64% of the levy and all other classes pay 36%.
3. What specific steps will you take to uphold the land use criteria that are adopted in the Official Community Plan?
There have been over 100 amendments to the OCP since it was last adopted and now costing $250,000 to update it. The fees to amend the OCP are about $1,500/application but based on the cost of updating the plan, shouldn’t the fees be at least $2,500? Personally, I think application fees should be $30,000 so the actual cost is recaptured, referendums are held for amendments and developers fit in to our community vision and not the other way around.
Frankly, don’t you think we need people leading the city based on more than a popularity contest?
Wayne Llewellyn Penticton