Popular Misconceptions
One of the difficulties of being on council is trying to refute the misconceptions that seem to pop up everywhere. Sometimes they're the result of a rumour being repeated and exaggerated for effect, sometimes they're put out there by some members of council to defend council decisions, or they may be put forth pseudonymously on electronic news sites by those who try to appear that they're just wondering about stuff, but they're really trying to confuse the issue.
So, since there was no council or executive meeting this past week because of Easter Monday, I thought that I'd use today's blog to talk about a few of these misconceptions, and give my perspective.
First, a few times during and immediately following the boil water order, it was suggested that the defeat of a proposal to increase water rates last summer was part of the reason why the boil water order was put in place, and an editorial in the local paper implied that those of us who voted against the increase (including me) were somehow to blame. Not so. In fact, if you review any of the explanatory material that was provided during the boil water order, lack of funding was not mentioned. It was an unfortunate set of circumstances, complicated by the ongoing upgrading, and an investigation of how it happened would probably be worthwhile, in order to avoid such circumstances in the future, but that's it.
I was open about my reasons for not agreeing with an increase last summer – in the previous five years, water rates had increased four times, including an ongoing 7% increase, compounding annually for the next several years, that this increase will be over and above. I wanted administration to look at decreasing unnecessary expenditures to make up any shortfalls, rather than hitting up the taxpayer yet again. And I specifically disagreed with charging city residents a higher rate for the same volume of water than rural users. To me, this means that city residents are once again subsidizing other users of our services, just like we do with the soccer centre, the golf course, and other facilities that are largely supported through your taxes, and I'd prefer to level the playing field a bit.