July 13, 2012
12/07/2012 07:37
Welcome To SAP And Good Morning!
Pull up a chair, grab a cuppa
hot coffee and spend 10 minutes to start your day with St. Albert's only daily news site.
Not from St. Albert? Not to worry, there's plenty for you too.
A great way to put a smile on your face before you begin your day.
Have an opinion, gripe or grin to share? Use our Live Chat feature below to share it with other readers. Try our frequent recipes. Give our puzzles a whirl or a game of hangman. Check out our outstanding linked photos. Got a story or photo to share? Want to wish someone happy birthday or anniversary? We love your stuff from any location. Go ahead, send it in. We dare you!
Best of all, it's all free thanks to our advertisers. Enjoy and please, tell your friends. And be sure to check back often each day as the site can be updated as events occur. Follow @mybirdietweets
City Manager's Capital Growth Fund
Wrong Strategy For City Of St. Albert
Hi Don:
The capital growth fund just approved by Council has significant ramifications for taxpayers. I think it is the wrong direction for the city to go and I've outlined why below.
Lynda Flannery
St. Albert
City Manager Patrick Draper’s proposal to use the City’s financial reserves to finance non-essential, “nice to have” projects like the $14 million Heritage Park project, the $16 million Community Support Centre or part of the $187 million DARP projects is just another way of increasing residential taxes to finance projects of questionable value.
The money contained in the City’s reserves are supposed to be restricted to being spent on particular types of projects, such as utilities. Over the years, St. Albert taxpayers have paid unnecessarily high taxes and utility rates to build up these reserves. Now, City Administration and Council wants to borrow money from these reserves to fund their “nice to have” projects.
The problem with this idea is that the money the City is borrowing from its reserves will eventually have to be paid back so that the reserves are rebuilt. An additional 2.6% tax increase per year over 20 years will be required from taxpayers’ pockets. That means St. Albert taxpayers will have been overtaxed once to build up these reserves, and then overtaxed again to pay back the City’s borrowing!
And it means we can look forward to tax increases in 5.5-6% range assuming the recent 3-3.5% tax increases are maintained as a base increase. If the city goes forward with this, it is even more reason for Councillor MacKay's 1.5% base tax increase proposal to be put in place.
Currently, the “capital pool”, or the amount of money Administration can spend without needing Council’s approval, is tied to the budget at 12.4%. If Council wants to borrow money for particular projects, it has to publicly acknowledge this by passing borrowing bylaws. However, Draper’s proposal would side step this process. It would spare Council from having to do the hard work of making tough political decisions to increase city debt levels and tax rates.
Draper’s “new” idea is just a way of getting more money to finance projects that a bedroom community the size of St. Albert has no business even thinking about. Instead of supporting this idea, Council would serve the public better by gathering the courage to oppose this. If the City is going to have money in reserves, then shouldn’t we only be using that money for the original purposes it was intended for?
Better yet, stop overtaxing the public to build these reserves. The transparency of special large projects requiring higher than normal tax increases over several years or debt financing is far preferable.
Note: An item in this edition of SAP was tampered with and used in an email to create false impressions. It has been removed to prevent further tampering.
Taking A Dip In Slave Lake
This guy forgot to put his truck in park yesterday at the Slave lake boat launch. I thought it might be cool to put a boat motor on the tail gate and take it for a spin. Submitted by fishing columnist Paul C.
_________________________________________________________________
BBC News Feed:
Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat
Links To Other Stories In The News:
B.C. landslide leaves four unaccounted for - CBC
Man accidentally kills 40,000-sq-ft lawn - CNN
Copyright fees on music, video, struck down by top court - CTV
Tillman has second thoughts about trading Ray - Edmonton Journal
Downtown arena already $35 million over budget - Edmonton Sun
__________________________________________________________________
The Things That People Send Us
Now there's a bargain . . .
Whoa!
What
Was That?
This Is Our Planet
There have been some amazing videos created with photos from the International Space Station, but none quite like this.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Playing Tonight At LB's Pub
Playing Tomorrow Night At LB's Pub
hot coffee and spend 10 minutes to start your day with St. Albert's only daily news site.
Not from St. Albert? Not to worry, there's plenty for you too.
A great way to put a smile on your face before you begin your day.
Have an opinion, gripe or grin to share? Use our Live Chat feature below to share it with other readers. Try our frequent recipes. Give our puzzles a whirl or a game of hangman. Check out our outstanding linked photos. Got a story or photo to share? Want to wish someone happy birthday or anniversary? We love your stuff from any location. Go ahead, send it in. We dare you!
Best of all, it's all free thanks to our advertisers. Enjoy and please, tell your friends. And be sure to check back often each day as the site can be updated as events occur. Follow @mybirdietweets
City Manager's Capital Growth Fund
Wrong Strategy For City Of St. Albert
The capital growth fund just approved by Council has significant ramifications for taxpayers. I think it is the wrong direction for the city to go and I've outlined why below.
Lynda Flannery
St. Albert
City Manager Patrick Draper’s proposal to use the City’s financial reserves to finance non-essential, “nice to have” projects like the $14 million Heritage Park project, the $16 million Community Support Centre or part of the $187 million DARP projects is just another way of increasing residential taxes to finance projects of questionable value.
The money contained in the City’s reserves are supposed to be restricted to being spent on particular types of projects, such as utilities. Over the years, St. Albert taxpayers have paid unnecessarily high taxes and utility rates to build up these reserves. Now, City Administration and Council wants to borrow money from these reserves to fund their “nice to have” projects.
The problem with this idea is that the money the City is borrowing from its reserves will eventually have to be paid back so that the reserves are rebuilt. An additional 2.6% tax increase per year over 20 years will be required from taxpayers’ pockets. That means St. Albert taxpayers will have been overtaxed once to build up these reserves, and then overtaxed again to pay back the City’s borrowing!
And it means we can look forward to tax increases in 5.5-6% range assuming the recent 3-3.5% tax increases are maintained as a base increase. If the city goes forward with this, it is even more reason for Councillor MacKay's 1.5% base tax increase proposal to be put in place.
Currently, the “capital pool”, or the amount of money Administration can spend without needing Council’s approval, is tied to the budget at 12.4%. If Council wants to borrow money for particular projects, it has to publicly acknowledge this by passing borrowing bylaws. However, Draper’s proposal would side step this process. It would spare Council from having to do the hard work of making tough political decisions to increase city debt levels and tax rates.
Draper’s “new” idea is just a way of getting more money to finance projects that a bedroom community the size of St. Albert has no business even thinking about. Instead of supporting this idea, Council would serve the public better by gathering the courage to oppose this. If the City is going to have money in reserves, then shouldn’t we only be using that money for the original purposes it was intended for?
Better yet, stop overtaxing the public to build these reserves. The transparency of special large projects requiring higher than normal tax increases over several years or debt financing is far preferable.
Note: An item in this edition of SAP was tampered with and used in an email to create false impressions. It has been removed to prevent further tampering.
Taking A Dip In Slave Lake
This guy forgot to put his truck in park yesterday at the Slave lake boat launch. I thought it might be cool to put a boat motor on the tail gate and take it for a spin. Submitted by fishing columnist Paul C.
_________________________________________________________________
BBC News Feed:
Welcome To St. Albert's Place Live Chat
Links To Other Stories In The News:
B.C. landslide leaves four unaccounted for - CBC
Man accidentally kills 40,000-sq-ft lawn - CNN
Copyright fees on music, video, struck down by top court - CTV
Tillman has second thoughts about trading Ray - Edmonton Journal
Downtown arena already $35 million over budget - Edmonton Sun
__________________________________________________________________
The Things That People Send Us
Now there's a bargain . . .
Whoa!
What
Was That?
This Is Our Planet
There have been some amazing videos created with photos from the International Space Station, but none quite like this.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Playing Tonight At LB's Pub
Playing Tomorrow Night At LB's Pub
