Buried away in the 1,731-page Oct. 27 CRD committee-of-the-hole report (and I did not misspell that) is a link to another report from the regional parks committee with this recommendation: “The Regional Parks Committee recommends the Committee of the Whole recommend to the Capital Regional District Board that the annual land acquisition levy be used to implement a debt financing strategy for future land acquisitions.”
The board wants to go from saving – if any tax can seriously be called that – to borrowing, using the land acquisition tax for loan payments on massive land purchases for parks to aggravate further the already critically short inventory of buildable and taxable residential land.
The only hold-out on the parks committee vote was Metchosin Mayor John Ranns. It’s not clear why Sooke Mayor Tait would be all hands-up on it at the parks committee since CRD Park acquisitions and district parks have already sucked 30 percent out of the Sooke municipal tax base CRD won’t even allow bicycles in a park.
This lunacy will immediately put the taxpayer at least another $50 million in debt, and there will be no way for any future board to do anything about it.
The recommendation should be to immediately re-allocate whatever money they haven’t already blown to wildfire protection and kill off the everlasting creep of the land acquisition tax.
Terrance Martin
Sooke
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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