Problem with local golf courses is they take too big a slice
My two buddies and I try to golf once a week, weather permitting, and we try not to pay more than $45 a round. That’s the biggest problem of golfing in the Lower Mainland — most courses are overpriced at $75 to $100 a round.
They have weekday rates that drop to $60 to $80, but you have to take time off work, so you lose a day’s wages to save $15.
We golf more often in the U.S. Even with the exchange rate, we only pay $40 a round and some of these courses offer unlimited play for $10 more. And these courses are very well looked after, just as nice as Northview or Westwood Plateau.
I went on vacation for 10 days last year and drove from Vancouver to Reno to Monterey and then back home up the California and Oregon coast and tried to golf twice a day.
I played 14 rounds for $250. Try doing that in B.C.
Ron Chernoff, Abbotsford
Good luck forming cabinet
Alberta premier-elect Rachel Notley has to pick a cabinet for her NDP government — a cabinet that will oversee revenues of $44 billion per year. Only four of the 54 NDP MLAs have legislature experience. Ten are in their 20s.
Notley needs to pick 11 people for her cabinet, each of whom will be paid a taxpayer-funded salary of $142,050 per year.
Her choices are an application engineer, an airline worker, a bus driver, a business consultant, a cashier, two civil-service employees, an electrician, two health-care workers, an insurance manager, four lawyers, a doctor, four nurses, a psychologist, a restaurant manager, five retirees, a realestate agent, a salesman, a school trustee, a secretary, a service technician, a shipperreceiver, four social workers, a software consultant, five students, four teachers, six union reps and a yoga teacher.
Imagine trying to pick a management team from those choices for a $100-million private company. The majority of Alberta voters wanted change and they got their change with a bunch of nobodies to watch over revenues of $44 billion per year.
Looks like Notley will be spending millions on high-paid consultants to provide training to a lame-duck cabinet.
Joe Sawchuk, Duncan
The rich pay enough already
Let it be known that the one-per-cent “owning class” of this country pays 20 per cent of all income taxes collected by the federal and provincial governments, with the rest of the top 10 per cent of taxpayers, based on incomes, adding another 20 per cent of the total.
The bottom 40 per cent of income earners pay only 10 per cent of total income taxes.
It would seem that the rich are paying a good share for services they seldom use. Those demanding “make the rich pay” need to drop their tired, exaggerated rhetoric.
Keith Westover, Vancouver
Take your tax and stick it
Letter-writer Stefan Forrestal suggests applying the proposed 0.5-per-cent additional sales tax to pay for transit on all residents of the province. But residents outside of Vancouver do not want to pay for Lower Mainland transit.
As a resident of northern B.C., I see where most of our pooled resources are spent and it’s not here. We will be paying for the Olympics, which Metro Vancouver residents take credit for, for the rest of our lives.
The fools in Vancouver re-elected Mayor Moonbeam, so live with the results.
Fran Berry, Prince George