Bids to overturn city s 2021 budget defeated 5-4 thompsoncitizen.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thompsoncitizen.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Thompson city council devoted several minutes to discussing the minutes of the April 26 meeting when they met May 10. Coun. Les Ellsworth contended that the minutes didn’t accurately reflect what. . .
Four councillors and members of the public put up a valiant effort to try to stop the 2021 budget from passing at a marathon council meeting May 10 but it was approved in a 5-4 vote, as were second. . .
The levy only applies to residential and institutional properties with water service lines of up to one inch. Commercial buildings, rental complexes and apartment buildings are not covered by the service and do not pay the levy. Repairs for breaks one metre or less from a building must be paid for by property owners or their insurance. In 2020, the last year of the previous special service bylaw, each property owner paid about $75 to cover the actual costs of repairing such line breaks in 2019, which was about $242,000. The special service fee will be in effect for five years and could rise to as much as $123.38 in 2025 based on the city’s estimates. If the actual costs are lower than the amounts set out in the bylaw, they are adjusted downwards. If the actual costs were to end up higher, a public hearing would have to be held to amend the plan.
The total value of all taxable property in the city rose slightly from $443,291,170 last year to $444,696,070 in the latest assessment rolls. Five of the nine council members voted in favour of the levy bylaw but the four who opposed it did so vociferously. “There’s no way in good conscience … that I could ever support a budget like this,” said Coun. Les Ellsworth, while Coun. Earl Colbourne said anyone who voted in favour of the levy bylaw should be ashamed. “We’re still spending money like crazy on things that, right now, we don’t need,” he said. What we need right now for the citizens of Thompson is tax relief.