Tax increases are out of control in View Royal and residents are paying the price.
Highlands and Langford had a zero per cent tax increase in 2011.
View Royal had an increase of five per cent, continuing a decade long tax increase above the rate of inflation and population growth.
Even so that increase doesn’t take into account this council’s increase in user fees for garbage/compost collection and sewage.
Further, while casino revenues used to pay for community services such as the Greater Victoria Public Library, these costs are now being added to residents’ taxes.
This allows the Town to divert funds to things such as the fire hall land and buildings without getting citizen buy in. In the words of one resident “we are being blue-bridged.”
In 2010 the Canadian Federation of Independent Business noted that View Royal local spending grew at 4.41 times the rate of population and inflation growth, the second highest in the B.C. medium-size town category.
We need a council that will pledge to improve transparency and accountability and keep property tax increases below the provincial rate of inflation.
Jim Powell
View Royal