Wasaga tax increases

Well for me, these are the easy discussion posts to prepare. Our “open and Transparent” Council is meeting again this week. Have a quick read. This one is only 137 pages.

Definitely a few things to pay attention to. Un-budgeted wage increases will just come out of reserves. No problem, previous Council’s have ensured that we have these funds on hand for important infrastructure projects. Our CAO’s need these increases.

There is a report that prepares us all for the upcoming budget. In quickly reading it, I suspect the municipal portion of our taxes will go up. The increase will be offset by using those all important reserves.

Every $340,000.00 to $370,000.00 of our budget will be equal to a 1% tax increase apparently. I look forward to seeing public input. Check out the two pages that schedule the budget process. Public comment periods are listed there. December 12 Council will vote on the Budget.

For those new to this, there are two portions of our taxes that create the overall increase. One is the budget dollars required by our Town Council. The other part is the County Council. Our highly paid Mayor and Deputy Mayor vote on that second portion as well.

Several people have done the math and the Municipal portion of our taxes have increased +17.5% since this Council has taken office.

So…. If you need motivation to start paying attention, just concentrate on your recent tax bill. Look at how much more it is today than what it was in 2021.

Back to the agenda. This is the agenda where our Council will create the new Party Planning Corporation. The full name for this new Corporation will be, “The Wasaga Beach Municipal Sports and Entertainment Corporation.” I will simply refer to it in future as “Brian’s Party Corp.”

First, let’s look at funding. Brian’s Party Corp. will be funded using two sources. First will be a loan of $500,000.00 from our Casino Revenue Reserves. Then, they will fund all of the original setup costs- originally $15,000, now $20,000 and nobody really knows what the total amount will be for sure. They have not put a limit on those costs, just estimates. It doesn’t really matter because the Brian’s Party Corp will not be charged these costs. They will be charged to the town and funded through general reserves.

But, let’s look at what is missing from this weeks report. I know this is serious, but please allow me to chuckle just a little. During the original presentation that approved moving this forward, there was an amount listed for first year wages. THAT amount has been repeatedly criticized over and over in the groups these discussions are shared in. So why are the specific wages not in this report? Gone! Lol. See… they do read our discussions. For anyone new to this story, that amount for the four positions was $427,000.00 for year one.

But let’s look at their justification. Let’s look at two specific focuses. First is the “it’s OKAY because other municipalities are doing it” reasoning.

Ok… let’s just examine that-

St. John’s- Population: 235,000

St.Johns Sports and Entertainment Limited, 300 Staff, Two Major Facilities; Mary Brown’s Centre and St. John’s Convention Centre. See photos for general scale.

The City of Edmonton owns the largest stadium in Canada, “Commonwealth Stadium”. Even mentioning Edmonton in a list of reasons we should do this is ludicrous. (We have a twin pad arena, the recplex and we will have a strip of pavement down by the FRAM Beach Condos. Hardly a comparison.

My initial search couldn’t find an actual Municipal Entertainment Corporation but I did find a partnership with a major promotion company. Advise me if anyone finds a separate entertainment or sports Corporation owned by the City.

Nope, couldn’t find a similar entertainment corporate structure. They have some great facilities and a very helpful website, but no “Party Corp.” that I could find.

Now, let’s look at their main reason for moving forward with this. They want to create a new vision for Wasaga Beach- “Central Ontario’s Music Capital.” Seriously? I personally think “Worlds longest freshwater Beach” is adequate!

We are being compared to Austin Texas. Population: 2,247,000. Just a while ago… “IN 1991” Austin started to focus on calling themselves the “Live Music Capital of the World”

Please, Please, Please, Check out the link.

https://www.austintexas.org/…/entertai…/sixth-street/….

When you get to the web page, watch the short video titled “6th Street.” Then think about walking through our new TPAL and strolling along Main Street.

This took me 30 minutes of searching. Will your Council members ask any questions or just praise the CAO’s and vote away our control AND money.

This entire Entertainment Corp. is simply a way for more high paying jobs to be thrown to friends. It will undoubtedly creat a few concerts. But I say if our Mayor and Joe want the rest of Council to vote for this, they should offer their resignations, Borrow $600,000.00 from each other and start their own corporation.

This should NOT be a tax payer funded risk. Tax payers should not be in the business of competing with concert promotion companies. I’m sure they have legal opinions, but how does this pass the sections in the Municipal Act that prevent Municipalities from competing with local businesses?

Hey… Brian, Joe…. Reach out to concert promoters. Offer them a contract to throw parties in your new facility. Offer them the same incentives you used to make the first ones look profitable. Oh… you may not be able to do that? Is that because of the word “bonusing” I heard the CAO use recently?

Please Brian, Do that! Please, form your own company and you won’t need to invest Wasaga Beach Tax Payer Money.

Brian, don’t forget… your budget discussions start with this agenda as well. (That’s where you vote how much of our money you want to access next year) Please START to think about our taxes and services first, then plan your parties.

If you do apply, don’t forget, “You May Speak ONLY TO THE MATTER IN WHICH PERMISSION HAS BEEN GRANTED” (They bolded it, not me. I had to use caps, FB doesn’t offer bold)

You are welcome to watch our Council but just DONT SPEAK to the chosen seven!