Bike lanes bundled with other works

Are they listening?

Or are our city council members even reading the letters to the editor? How does the average citizen get across to them? We can’t all be at their meetings but, I think, they read our newspaper.

Daniel Pontes’ letter in the March 11 Herald edition was very good. Some excellent points for council to know and take into account. Are you able to read or are you listening, Council?

And then there was the article “Bike Lanes make early appearance” (Herald, March 15). It was very enlightening. It was absolutely unbelievable to read that the bike lane expenditures get “bundled with other works.”

Are we to take from that, that essential services, such as utilities or roads, or such like, may in fact be bundled with proposed, totally non-essential expenditures?

Crazy! Unbelievable! How can a nonessential expenditure be bundled with an essential other works?

It is totally refreshing to read — in that same aforementioned headline article — that we have one councillor who has come forward and stated for the record that, due to her understanding of a lot of opposition to the bike lane expenditures, she will honour that and she will vote against it. Bravo. Somebody paid attention and, in my opinion, acted responsibly.

It is less refreshing to read, again in the same article, that staff member Joanne Kleb is giving consideration to a survey that was taken from 0.8% of Penticton’s population.

Let’s do a little math, also taken from that same headline article: 1. 9.7% Tax increase, 2. 3.3% is for deferred tax hikes from previous years (I don’t understand that one), 3. 3.4% for increased operational costs and 4. the balance for increased firefighters and police.

9.7% less 3.3%, less 3.4% = 3.0%. So, 3% is for the increased firefighting and police, right?

So, there is now a question I will pose: What is the amount of property tax that the City is collecting this year from new development: new houses built, new duplexes, new fourplexes, new townhouses, new industrial development that was not there last year?

This new development brings in new taxes and this new development and the resulting increase in infrastructure and population is likely a big reason for additional firefighting and policing.

I just don’t understand why I have to pay for it too.