At Council's Committee of the Whole meeting this past Tuesday (Feb 3/09), Council made a Recommendation, which still must be ratified by Council at their Feb 10th, 2009 meeting, that Water and Sewer Rates be frozen for 2009.
I think that it is the right thing to do, given that Tolko is temporarily shutting down 3 of its' mills in Williams Lake. However, as the WL Tribune and WL City Councillor Geoff Bourdon rightly points out, it does have consequences down the road in 2010 and beyond, and the same logic applies also to having a 0% increase in property taxes during 2009. It can be done however Council does need to take in account in future years what consequences such a decision will bring. Certainly, Council does have its' work cut out for them entering into Budget discussions for the 2009 Fiscal Year.
In fact, all municipal councils' along with regional boards' will have to make some difficult choices (ie: freezing property tax + water/sewer rates, freeze capital budgets, etc) for this year and see what 2010 brings.
No comments:
Post a Comment