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Letter: Infrastructure decisions for Penticton

Our property tax bills and utility costs are in for monumental property tax and utility charge increases.

Read the council report from Mitch Moroziuk to council in the Oct. 5, 2016 council agenda on major infrastructure  improvements required in the City of Penticton

$175 million in infrastructure improvements will be required over the next number of decades.

Our property tax bills and utility costs are in for monumental property tax and utility charge increases.

Some of us will be dead in the short run and our commitment will die with us. We are leaving a wonderful legacy to the next generations to pay for the lack of foresight by our municipal, federal and provincial  elected officials and bureaucrats.

How do cities gain control of spending and the wishes of politicians to be re-elected. We either gain control of our municipal spending or we all move to the surrounding areas and free load on the city taxpayers that fund the arenas, parks, swimming pools, libraries, beaches and other amenities. Danny Boy (Dan Ashton), you were part of the problem, how do you propose to be part of the solution?

Should the newer areas of Penticton fund the revitalization of older areas of the city? Newer  areas should pay to improve and maintain common infrastructure as well as fund reserves that will fund future infrastructure replacements in their own areas. Possibly, an infrastructure upgrade charge should be recovered from all future sales of properties in all  sections of the city. Obviously, older areas have major infrastructure problems and the funding of these infrastructure repairs needs to be addressed.

A good example would be downtown Penticton, should residential taxpayers be funding 76 per cent of the  revitalization costs in the downtown core? Should the property owners in the downtown core not be funding their own revitalization upgrades and reserves?

Can residential taxpayers afford to fund infrastructure deficits, economic investment zones, reductions in the property tax  multiplier, tourism costs and the poor decisions made by our city councils? City councils need to do some soul searching and step forward with suggestions in how to come to grips with the  spending our hard-earned incomes.

Taxpayers need to do some soul searching and step forward with suggestions in how on how to come to grips with a major deficiency in the current infrastructure funding requirements

Do provincial and federal governments and politicians need to funnel back more of the tax revenues collected in many forms from  the residents of municipalities. Make this problem an issue in the upcoming provincial election, get some concessions in the form of bribery.

All levels of government and municipal residents need to get involved in the decision making on how to make the required infrastructure improvements in a fair cost effective manner.

Ted Wiltse

Penticton