By John Francis
Between paid parking revenues and the 4% Municipal Accommodation Tax on STA revenues, our municipality is seeing a substantial increase in revenue, possibly as much as a 10% increase.
What shall we spend it on?
Much of that revenue is “earmarked” for tourism-related expenses, but that still leaves a lot of scope.
Do we want more enforcement of our laws and bylaws? Or more buildings? Or more sidewalks, bike lanes and paved roads? Or water and sewer systems? All of these could qualify as “tourism-related” but which ones do we care about most?
Buses sometimes park blocking Highway 6. We could pay the OPP to send people up here more often to prevent that sort of thing.
People from away often park in places where they shouldn’t — the “Resident Parking Only” spots at Mermaids Cove and Dunks Bay are two examples that leap to mind. Do we want to pay for a lot more Bylaw Enforcement presence to make sure all the miscreants get tickets?
Or should we put it into municipal infrastructure?
What do we want — more OPP presence or a renovation at the Rotary Hall in Lion’s Head? More bylaw enforcement or a water system in Tobermory?
Do we want to spend money enforcing our speed limit bylaws? Or just put in some speed bumps and better signage and spend the money on pedestrian and bike paths?
More spending on enforcement or more spending on infrastructure?
And even within the infrastructure category, there’s a big question — do we want to allocate money for fancy public parking lots? Or upgrade the attractions the visitors are coming here to see? (Put my support behind the Minch Viewing Deck on the south side of Little Tub Harbour in Tobermory and an expanded public park at Lion’s Head Beach.)
That takes care of the parking revenues and the MAT tax revenues. But there is another elephant in the room (crowded in here, isn’t it?)
MNBP has by far the lowest property tax rate in Bruce County (and probably the lowest in Ontario — I keep forgetting to check). That’s why we have a shortage of municipal water and sewage systems, sidewalks, bike lanes, tennis courts, ball fields, skating rinks, swimming pools, public parks and municipal staff.
Because no matter how competent and dedicated our municipal staff are, they can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Are we, as ratepayers, willing to pay higher taxes to get better infrastructure and better services? Anybody who reads this space regularly will know that I am a fan of increasing taxes to improve our quality of life. But how about you, gentle reader?
What do YOU want? Improved infrastructure and better services or same-old same-old?
Over the next few weeks we have a unique opportunity to sound out the candidates for Council, to find out how they think and whether they can be trusted to do what we want.
But first, we need to figure out what it is that WE want. How do we want MNBP to spend the parking/MAT revenues?
And are WE willing to pay higher taxes to improve our communities? Because — trust me on this — if we don’t make it plain we want something different, we’re gonna get same-old same-old.
