I am concerned about recent spending by View Royal. Why do we need 10 highly paid administrators and staff for a town of less than 10,000 residents?
Why did the Town spend $15,000 for a “Fire Hall needs analysis” in December 2007 and then ignore the recommendations regarding location and response times?
Why did the Town pay near $2.4 million, borrowed dollars for a collection of sites? Was the $544,000 spent on another new fire truck really necessary?
Also, why did we spend thousands of dollars putting a permanent chain link fence completely around a vacant lot for the proposed new fire station when they will have to breach it for proposed construction?
If we are to have a new fire hall, then it behooves View Royal council to be more forthcoming with information supporting the project including why properties already owned by the Town were not suitable, cost effectiveness of own department versus support agreements from adjacent municipalities, and ramifications of possible municipal amalgamation/regional protective services as to the location and need for a new station in View Royal.
These are hard financial times for many people and I hope all levels of local government can do better with this year’s budget; either reduce taxes or, at the worst, have no increase in residential taxes.
Most of all let them not waste taxpayer’s money on unnecessary, nice-to-have or frivolous expenditures.
Jim Powell
View Royal