I happened to peruse the Annual Report recently and I was disappointed by the lack of creativity used in trying to hoodwink the taxpayers.
I could critique every page, but because the first 68 pages (and I am not exaggerating) were all subjective, length constraints restrict my comments so I will ignore most of them.
A couple of these jumped out at me and I feel I must comment on them: 1) It is noted as a foundation of the community that the municipality will grow by developing more jobs. Do they really think companies are going to relocate here where the bulk of the employees could not afford to live? There are already employers complaining about the lack of people available for some jobs.
If this is one of the municipality’s foundations, this foundation is shaky, and how can one build strong structure?
2) The only reason the movie location shoots are up last year is because the Canadian dollar is low. It has nothing to do with this group. In a certain period of time, location burnout will occur and the industry will move elsewhere. This is not a building block to a stable community.
Why a taxpayer has to support a billion-dollar industry is a head scratcher for me. This council is making the mistake of making long-term plans based on a short-term situations and that is not a sound plan.
The report notes the municipality has strong financial management. All I see is my taxes going up every year with no appreciate increase is services that I can see. And the constant AAP rather than a referendum. which they know would be turned down.
The annual report presentation is very poor. Who is the target audience here? Not the taxpayer and really isn’t that the ones who matter?
In summary, the report is muddy, very muddy. One has to wonder who this report is for as most taxpayers, myself included (and I am an accountant), will have great difficulty in understanding this. The municipality seems to have an identity problem. Who do they think is the tail and who is the dog?
Dave Colledge
Brackendale
