Raise my taxes. Please.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/01/2012 (5030 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let me be clear right from the start: I think the taxes I pay are a bargain for the services I receive, and I would like to pay MORE in taxes so that this city can do even MORE for me.

News broke late last week that city council is going to re-consider the budget, but I hope they don’t re-consider it to death.

I’ve been disappointed in how they are handling the public debate — especially in the online echo chamber of this eBrandon thread — and the budget isn’t perfect, but overall, I like it.

Here’s why: I can afford it. The city needs it. And we should have done it years ago.

 

1. I can afford it. You can, too.

Sure, I know you don’t WANT to pay extra money to the city, but it’s almost certain you can afford it. Many Brandon residents will only have to shell out a couple hundred bucks extra.

I spend more than that on coffee in a year, and I make my own coffee. So it you’re mad about the spendy city government, pounding your fist on the dash of your truck as you idle in line at the Tim Hortons drive-through, well you’ve got quite the beam in your eye.

And, if you’re worried about not being able to afford the tax increase while you’re still trying to buy furniture to fill your brand-new mortgaged-to-the-hilt McMansion, then the problem isn’t the city’s priorities, but your own.

In an extreme case — seniors on a fixed income, say — I can sympathize with how tough it can be to budget for any increase. But this is not an exorbitant increase. For most people, we’re talking about a couple of twenties every month. Smoke less, drink less, order one less pizza.

 

2. The city needs it.

The city has done a terrible job articulating precisely why they need more money, so let me take a stab at it:

Remember how our city is literally collapsing into the street? And the 258-day saga that ensued?

I lay the blame for this fiasco squarely at the feet of previous city councils. It wasn’t handled perfectly by a rookie council that was distracted by a massive flood, but it wouldn’t have happened in the first place if we had been paying attention ahead of time.

The Brown Block collapse is just one (particularly graphic) example of the way that Brandon is slowly decaying under years of no-tax-increase mantra.

I know, I know, this isn’t an "infrastructure budget" but a "salary budget". And I don’t care. Civic staff are a type of infrastructure, too. We need good people in the right positions to do a good job.

Take another look at the picture above and tell me that we don’t need to beef up our development office. That includes building inspectors who should prevent such decay, but also the people who will help turn that vacant lot (we’ve got a lot of vacant lots) into something.

The city has been criticized for its hiring spree, but those new hires include a policy analyst. I had a little fun with Nathan Peto’s budget presentation before, but do you really think the city is better off without someone checking data and crunching numbers?

And sure, Allison Collins is a friend and former colleague of mine, but even if she wasn’t, I’d still think the city needs a communications director. It’s almost mind-boggling to think that they didn’t have one before.

Meanwhile, the city continues to grow. But it’s growing in a haphazard way that looks frighteningly like urban sprawl. As long as the city is operating on a shoestring budget, it won’t have the oversight or expertise necessary to manage that growth in a good way.

A city with a little bit of muscle might have stepped in to direct the Corral Centre parking lot be designed in a better way, to pick just one obvious example.

 

3. We should have done it long ago.

My home has a basement and a second storey. To get there, I have staircases. That means, I can take a series of small steps to go up or down a large amount.

The city’s tax increase, ideally, should have done the same thing.

If, for the past 15 years, we had increased taxes by 1 per cent every year or so, we would all be paying more money than this whole increase, and we wouldn’t have complained half as much.

But instead of building a staircase, previous city councils kept things flat. And now we’re being forced to scale a wall. It’s an imperfect metaphor, but it makes sense to me.

The biggest mistake previous councils made was always kicking the decision-making can further down the road. That’s how a simple decision to build a firehall got turned into a disaster.

Don’t make the same mistake as previous councils did. Don’t keep pushing decisions back while you discuss it to death. Don’t keep re-opening the same debate, over and over and over again.

The city has enough new issues without rehashing all the existing ones 50 times.

Council came up with a budget. Council had a public consultation. Council debated it. Council voted on it. It should be done with.

So I urge city council: Pass the budget. Raise my taxes. Invest in my city.