One can certainly tell last week’s deliberations by Chatham-Kent councillors in regard to municipal spending was over the last budget before the next municipal election.
How else does one explain a Chatham councillor – one who has publicly announced he’s running for mayor next year and thus is seeking votes outside of Chatham – leading the charge to put rural dust suppression back in place at a cost of $1.47 million a year, which bumped the tax increase by 0.67 per cent?
This after the budget committee had just approved a $1.1-million pilot project to bring back dust control in a very targeted manner.
Or how rural councillors circled the wagons over a single mention of considering area rating dust control?
In the end, after one and a half nights of deliberations, council passed a 4.63-per-cent hike onto the ratepayers. That translates to an increase in taxes of $172 on the average C-K home.
Had council stopped after the first night, we’d have seen a tax increase of only 3.96 per cent.
Heck, had they called it quits after Capt. Slash – South Kent Coun. Anthony Ceccacci – had successfully lobbied for the dust control pilot project (with funding of $1.1 million coming from reserves), we’d still be at 3.96.
Ceccacci had proposed putting down dust suppressant 100 metres in front of all rural homes on gravel roads in the municipality, and at all gravel intersections. Given it was a new plan, the budget committee thought it would be best to use reserves for the test.
But along came Bondy, who apparently dislikes dust about as much as he hates homeless encampments.
And with Chatham Coun. Amy Finn floating a question about perhaps having this service area rated – so everyone not living on a dirt road in C-K wouldn’t have to pay for it – that was quickly dismissed. West Kent Coun. Melissa Harrigan poo-poo’ed the concept.
“If we move to area rating services, that’s a large cost for service for not a lot of houses. We are a rural community and everyone’s sharing the cost of this service.”
But what about urban residents, who pay via area rating for such things as sidewalks, streetlights, transit, storm sewers and garbage pickup? What’s good for the urban goose should be good for the rural gander.
Maybe so, but not in an election year.
