Osoyoos Town Hall. (File photo)
Dear Editor:
Osoyoos may not be the metropolis that is New York or Chicago, both heading into bankruptcy, but we have our spending problems.
Any way you look at it, spending more today whilst hoping to have the ability to pay tomorrow can be dangerous both personally and in business.
Interest rates and costs have a way of creeping up. The ability to service debt or not can reach a tipping point rather suddenly.
In the case of governments the easy decision is simply to raise taxes, thus reducing personal disposable income, standard of living, and moneys that flow into and sustain the local private sector and real job creation. Fine perhaps in affluent times, not so smart in recessions.
In America, there is a net migration out of high tax states such as California, New Jersey, Illinois, into low tax states such as Texas and Florida. Affordable housing is not so affordable if the Town of Osoyoos keeps raising taxes.
I hope the Town of Osoyoos fully intends and is capable of paying off debts without raising taxes. Also I hope the council will exercise fiscal prudence when it comes to adding more paid positions to the already growing bureaucracy, including thoughts for a paid fire chief.
It also concerns me that the recently constructed “state of the art” firehall needs, at great cost to taxpayers, to retrofit wheel chair accessible washrooms and add an elevator for handicapped access to the balcony. It also concerns me that the need for a new Town hall and police station was not integrated into the fire hall footprint.
Respectfully submitted,
Bobbie Fischer, Osoyoos
