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Merciless
It’s the smell that hits you first. The sweet, earthy fragrance of wet decay. Of death, releasing oils and nutrients from former living matter into the atmosphere. It is not an unpleasant aroma. Petrichor is the clearest signal that you have arrived in this strange and wonderful place. Soaring cedars deliver regal majesty to the sensation. A groundcover of ferns and mushrooms shares the verdant rainforest floor. Everything is wet. Has always been wet.
The roar of a 10- metre surf nearby is but a dramatic diversion from the oblivion that is the vast Pacific Ocean rolling out to the horizon. It draws explorers and adventurers across the mountain ranges of Vancouver Island. They come to tame its massive waves.
But like bull riding, surfing is about managing failure. Of degrees of defeat and humiliation. No one succeeds. At best, you may aspire to stay upright longer than someone else. But soon enough, Nature tosses you ungainly back onto the sand upon which you arrogantly wandered to tackle the beast. She is merciless. And undiscriminating.
Please forgive this bit of a travelogue before we dip back into the grubby business of Shire Hall budgets. As in all life’s pursuits, perspective is an ointment for a sour disposition.
As the Times reported last week, Shire Hall is seeking to push the tax levy up by 11 per cent next year. For those still clinging to the idea of the County as a fresh start, of winding down or of continuing the path your ancestors marked out, successive municipal budgets have incrementally sapped that ambition. Another twist of the thumbscrew—meant, it seems, to wean out those who must consider the cost of local government. Those who are unsure whether they will have enough to get by this month.
It’s odd, because I don’t believe anyone on council or the folks beavering away at Shire Hall aimed to make the County an enclave of the wealthy. They did not actively work to push poor folks away. They did not set out to discourage retirees from seeking Valhalla elsewhere. They do not wake up in the morning eager to discourage entrepreneurship, trial and error or experimentation. They simply didn’t do anything to change the course of unfolding events. It’s what happens when the forest is allowed to grow unfettered. Untended.
Indeed, they bandy about the word affordable every day—as if by saying it over and over again, it might be enough. That it might change something. It has been clear for a while, however, that their concept of affordability was empty of substance or conviction. Council’s responsibility to the idea of an affordable community stopped somewhere between saying the words and doing something.
11 PER CENT
Councils and Shire Hall have rendered Prince Edward County unaffordable. Slowly, steadily, it has winnowed down the cohort who can live here. Who can forge a life here.
They will point the finger elsewhere. To past terms of council, to senior levels of government, to past leadership. And there is a measure of truth to it. But it is this council and this leadership that decided that the $54 million tax levy this year should rise to $60 million next year.
ROADS. STUFF. AND FOLKS TO MANAGE THE STUFF.
In 2004, Council raised the tax levy by 12.9 per cent. An astonishingly bold move for the newly amalgamated municipality. But they had their reasons. They always have reasons. Council said then, and likely believed their words, that such a massive tax hike would put the County on a solid, sustainable footing. That taking our medicine in 2004 would put the municipal government on a sustainable path.
It didn’t. It merely set the stage for an insatiable local government and ever-expanding tax levies.
So here we are. Post-affordable.
Where this community was once widely diverse— generationally and economically—successive decisions have rendered the place a mostly homogeneous hideout of rich, retiring folks.
Linger in the Pacific Rim rainforest long enough, and you begin to notice that beyond the Western Red Cedar and Sitka Spruce, the western sword ferns and the Pacific golden chanterelle, it isn’t a particularly diverse ecosystem. A few species thrive. There are no maples or oaks interspersed in the rainforest. Circumstances and conditions have limited what can live here. And for how long.
Mercilessly.
If you review the historical financial statements (Reference: https://www.thecounty.ca/residents/services/finance/) , spending, taxing, and borrowing has been the way of the County for a long, long time, and people were obviously comfortable enough that it was allowed to continue. Many County residents benefited from this.
But under the last two Councils, the spending has gone into overdrive, forcing more and more borrowing and taxing. Various narratives were published that were based on fantastical projections, to justify all this. Much of the media breathlessly endorsed the grand plans of a new shining city on the hill (or, in our case, a former airport, which happens to be on a hill).
When reality becomes evident, and it becomes clear that these plans will not materialize, there will be lots of finger-pointing, denials, and cover ups.
If there is no wholesale change in the Mayor and Council after the next election (only 10 months away), then the spending, taxing and borrowing will continue, and quite likely will get even worse.
As far as the Province taking over the County, why would that happen? The Province is the beneficiary of the massive borrowing increases. The County is borrowing from them. Would a Bank take over the finances of a borrower that is borrowing heavily, yet continuing to pay massive interest? Of course not.
The County’s future, at the moment, is squarely in the hands of the developers and consultants, supported by the current Mayor and Council. Without a change in elected representatives, and a change in those representatives’ approach to managing Staff, the conversion of the County to “Muskoka east” will continue.
So true. So sad. Spending other people’s money is great fun.
The County’s budget is a crisis! There is no end to spending or any desire to review the bloated staffing levels. Shire Hall would say they could not function with the loss of “one” position. Their resistance to reduce costs and staff is not selling any longer. The taxpayer knows better. The spin that will come out of next weeks budget deliberations won’t wash with the Public. The best solution would be the Ministry of Municipal Affairs taking over control and dissolving Council.