Last night the city budget for next year was announced. And you guessed it. Taxes are indeed going up by 5%, AGAIN! Oh yea and water usage is going up 10%. “Merry” Christmas.

But that’s all ok Council promises. We have budgeted funds for the economic development plan so we can bring in more businesses and tax the s*$t out of them and eventually reduce residential taxes. Yeah right, like Spruce Grove is going to become an industrial power house, and taxes will come down in the future. This I gotta see!

While pondering all this I can’t help but think that all this was done by a council who was elected by only 22 percent of us. The other 78% of us could give a…!

Back to Spruce Grove as an industrial power house. Spruce Grove is a bedroom community of Edmonton. Always has been always will be. Why you ask? It’s because it was planned and designed that way from the beginning by Melcor, and then actually built that way. Building golf courses, parks, Tri-leisure centres, dog runs, more parks and football fields, skating rinks, more parks etc. is an attraction to families, not businesses.

The City of Choice has built for families and now has them but really can’t pay for all the services they are providing. So rather than make the tough decisions and tighten their belt and cut services they do the easy thing by raising taxes in some misguided hope that they can attract enough business to relocate to Spruce Grove so they can tax the hell out of them.

 

Oh, and if you think that Council has anything to do with or input to the Cities budget other than to say how well prepared it was, “justifying its merits”, you are naïve. It is all prepared by Doug Lagore (City Manager) and administration then brought to the people who only 22 percent of us voted for, or not, to rubber stamp.

“Merry” Christmas Everyone!