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Letter: Firehall funding unfair

Why isn’t the same concept being used with firehall funding?
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Firehall funding unfair

Several recent letters have already spelled out the gross inequity being foisted on the homeowners of Cowichan Bay by the recent and poorly publicized negative-option, alternative approval funding process recently completed.

For those Cow Bay homeowners not in the know, on average you are about to be billed about $350 more on your tax bill over the next 10 years to pay for a new firehall.

Despite the fact that this new firehall will inevitably service emergencies from the Malahat to Ladysmith, the $16 million tab will only be split between the 4,500 local owners in Cow Bay and add about $350 to their next ten municipal tax bills. In contrast the same funding process used for the new $4.8 million Crofton Firehall will be split between about 28,600 residents of North Cowichan. Their tab will average only $17 per year over 10 years.

Defeating this totally unfair financing system would have taken about 450 Cow Bay negative votes but it came up short less than 50. Did you even hear about it? What would your vote have been?

Contrast this with the CVRD upcoming election referendum designed to much more equitably share recreation facility costs throughout the entire user population. Why isn’t the same concept being used with firehall funding?

I will copy this letter to both of the Area D candidates in the upcoming election and very much hope they will take up this cause and find a way of spreading these costs much more evenly across the entire regional tax paying population. I do not dispute the need for a new firehall but please let’s figure out a more reasonable way to fund it.

Let’s now see a letter from the candidates and vote accordingly.

Charles Ayers

Cowichan Bay