Confusion over city’s Financially Fit talk

By Letter to the Editor on June 28, 2018.

Just when we get used to the idea that we are on the road to recovery, we are presented with the fact “we’re in a mess”, according to Coun. Turner in a June 19 News story headlined “Utility fee defeated. Now what?” The mayor “implored” council not to add the new fee, stating “in his opinion the projected $33 million power dividend would be followed by others.” He went further, adding “dividends are not a dirty word!”

This after years of ensuring we (the taxpayer and shareholders) understood we had to release ourselves from the reliance of dividends from what we own! I am confused. Coun. Dumanowski called a 7-per-cent tax increase untenable. He goes on to say “Financially Fit with MCAF (municipal consent and access fee) is the solution!” Again I am confused.

It was my understanding that Financially Fit was the solution. I do not recall any discussion regarding MCAF when the Financially Fit initiative was being so enthusiastically promoted by council. Coun. McIntosh stated “the next three years is a window for us to move forward” yet again confusing me as I had accepted that the Financially Fit initiative and the already approved tax increases over the next few years were just that, enabling us to move forward and away from our reliance on revenue from what we own.

When do these members of council see us being free of continuing large tax/user fee increases, or at the very least getting to acceptable levels of increases? And we still have the most expensive part of our ownership of our utilities to come É the cleanup of our unused, shut-down and abandoned wells. I am so tired of being reminded of how much cheaper it is to live in Medicine Hat than other places in the province.

Maybe the reason people who live in these “expensive” parts of the province do not leave and move to Medicine Hat is because they feel they get a far better return on their taxes being non-shareholders in their utilities.

Wayne Smith

Medicine Hat

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