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Residents in Sooke are concerned about the imminent tax hikes to pay for the new sewer system. |
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Calendar of Events & special Dates |
All Residents will Pay for Oversized Sewage System ComponentsAll Sooke residents could be in for a nightmarish scenario of tax increases over which they have no control thanks to a politically explosive decision made last week by Sooke's town council. Not content with deciding to dump treated sewage from the downtown core into the Strait of Juan de Fuca off Sooke Bay, council in its' wisdom has now decreed that all taxpayers will pay part of the cost of that sewage system even though there is absolutely no indication that their homes will ever be hooked up. The tax bombshell is buried in one of the recommendations approved by councils committee of the whole meeting on Feb 19. Under the heading "Who will pay?", it contains decrees that that are more akin to what you would find in a totalitarian state than in our so-called democratic society. The council has ordered that "oversized capital components (those components oversized to provide for future expansion to the system) be funded by the community as a whole " - which is nothing more than a sneaky way to help cover the huge cost of servicing the core. Nobody has a clue what these oversized components will cost. The best guess is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and not one council member was interested enough to ask. This could mean staggering increases in every residents tax bill.
Particularly galling are the proposals in the section entitled "Public consent process" , where the idea of a referendum to approve the funding, as was done with the swimming pool, was dismissed out of hand. The mayor reneged on his promise made at a public information meeting last fall to hold a referendum on the matter - proving he's just another politician who doesn't keep his word. |
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