New Glasgow to adopt a property tax exemption

Wheels on no Buses go around PC.

- February 19, 2013 at 16:05:42

Johnny what you pay for here is more police officers and civil servants per capita then Toronto . A CAO who's salary rivals the Mayor of Toronto and Mayor and Councilors in a town of less then 9500 that make more per citizen they serve then any municipality in Canada. I have checked it out recently . The City of Toronto indeed got out of owning a Skydome when they sold that dog to Ted Rogers for a mere 25 million dollars for a 650 million dollar building. Toronto was bleeding buckets of red ink playing faux developer of a building without paying tenants essentially. The Town of New Glasgow ran head long into picking up the tab on A Glasgow Square, Riverfront Jubillee, Marinas, Farmers Markets, Trails and 800 dollar a yard concrete for the downtown sidewalks that indeed dont make money and are a drain on the taxpayers or rather they hope generations un born of taxpayers . The Exodus of businesses out of New Glasgow is due in part because a Town Council and Staff still believe that they are a business when indeed they would be fired if they lost the amount of money working for Empire in Stellarton. The funding for the JBM Stadium in New Glasgow has been 100 K per year for decades. The simple fact is for the Marina something like 3 million was spent on that project from different levels of government or the one taxpayer in this country. To maintain simple interest on that project the Marina would have to have 45 boats paying 32 dollars a day for 90 days a year to have the interest paid and then pay for maintenance and staffing to protect the Taxpayers . Johnny Smoke have you ever seen 45 boats down there ever let alone paying 32 a day for 90 days ? Two years of that rate to simply maintain the place could buy a pretty good used sports boat. Same thing applies to the building of the Glasgow Square and other things in New Glasgow. Politicans build pyramids here in NG that would raise the eyes of The Ancient Egyptians. WJF Toronto also has mass transit including subways so comparing taxpayer volume via residents is not a good comparison.

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  Johnny smoke

  - February 20, 2013 at 10:07:58

  Well at the risk of spewing more crap and carrying on with more rants I will try to answer your more than comprehensive article, which I may add is very telling and complete. In my opinion what we have here in New Glasgow in particular and in Pictou County in general are what is known as"Ten cent millionaires". All of the outward signs suggest a vibrant forward looking town and county, run by capable visionaries who religiously guard every penny of the rate payers money and only use it for the greater good of "All" of the community. Now if you believe that, I am accepting bids on the George Street bridge, maybe WJF would like to submit a bid as he seems to think that all is kosher in this land of make believe. However my original piece was to focus on the measly exemption that is being tossed out to persons who receive $18252.00 gross per annum. This is nothing but a symbolic crumb being tossed out by a over loaded, over paid, town hall, which as you point out has some of the highest paid employees outside of the main commercial and industrial business.One must also include our various M.L.A.'s; and councilors of course because they too are snout deep in the trough as well. In my estimation that is the reason and the whole reason why the residential mil rate in Toronto the home of my relative is .46 cents per $100 of assessment, while in sunny seaside New Glasgow it is $1.80 per $100 of assessment, do you feel that we are four times better off than the resident of a large city? Do you still feel the same after remitting a very large amount of money to the town hall then look around and see what you are paying for but in many cases cannot use? Well I sure do. I have every sympathy for those who are trying to maintain as house and home on $18 grand a year, it must be tough if not impossible. Maybe if we had fewer jamboree's, maybe if everyone and I mean everyone paid their full share for the marina, maybe if the town hall employed fewer paper pushers and dreamers that exemption could be for the full amount instead of a piddley sum that would not cover one catered town hall meeting, of which there are many.

Johnny smoke

- February 19, 2013 at 09:36:35

Does that mean that all tents and lean too's are included. An income from all sources of $18,252. I really do not know who comes out with these numbers, my income is double the above amount and I just get by, the other day alone my friendly oil man dropped by with an invoice for some $800 bucks and that is not the last that I will see of him,my power bill has gone up by some $12 bucks on top of the already $120/month and no i do not have a electric welder in my back shop sucking the life out of the system. MY relative has a condo in Toronto valued at $500 thousand and he pays just over $1800.00 a year in municipal taxes, my above on a good day might and I say might fetch some $125 thousand and I am paying close to $2300.00 a year for what? I do not even have the C.N. tower to look at, the N.S.P. smoke stack in Trenton is just not the same.. I think some serious curtailment is needed in the orgy of municipal taxes, unless of course the idea is to drive everyone except the filthy rich out of their homes and into tents. If that is the ultimate aim you are succeeding beyond your wildest dreams.

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  WJF

  - February 19, 2013 at 10:52:26

  While I agree with you that $18,252 seems like way to small of a number for anyone to take advantage of, the rest of your rant takes away from what started out to be a good point. Your relative who pays $1800 per year in taxes on his condo is only paying a small portion of the tax on that property. How many units are in that building? Are there 50, 100, that would mean $90,000-180,000 being colected on that one building, my guess is there may be even more than 100 units. People may take what you have to say more seriously if you try to leave out some of the crap and keep the attention on the issue.