Boy, am I ever impressed by our city council for increasing my taxes by only 2.6 per cent this year. Our councillors have continuously squandered money by spending exorbitant amounts on the following:
• The spending of $60,000 to heat the Arlington Inn over the winter. I would have shut off the water and let it sit.
• The building of a parking lot that we don’t need above the bus station at triple the cost it could have been built for a few years ago.
• Building the Taj Mahal (civic yards) on a flood plain and putting it as far away as possible to expanding areas of Red Deer. Now we have a civic yard comparable to a city 40 times our size, such as Toronto.
• The spending of $400,000 to plow snow from residential streets, but zero dollars to actually remove the snow. Meanwhile, according to the Red Deer Advocate, Mayor Morris Flewwelling spent $219,000 on his 2009 expenses ($7,300 over budget).
• The giving of a big raise to city councillors, courtesy of a vote by city councillors.
These are only a very few things this irresponsible council has done.
If they had half a clue how to run a $100-million business, they would have shown some restraint instead of gouging the people of Red Deer for more property taxes.
The prices of houses has decreased by about 20 per cent, but we will likely pay more taxes in the future once councillors decide we need a 50-metre pool.
Let me give them the councillors some advice: Get your heads out of the sky and show us some common sense because that is what we voted for you to do.
Robert Brown
Red Deer