Editor:
When I became a councillor I soon realized Burns Lake had an infrastructure deficit and that our tax rates were lower than adjacent communities. They still are even with our tax increase.
It is like driving your car and never fixing anything. Eventually you will be stranded.
Council decided to raise taxes as you noted in last week's paper.
It is important to note that this is approximately a $64 rate increase per average household.
The main reason I pushed for this was to move towards implementing a district heating system for the village.
Currently 15 per cent of our local heating dollars stay local.
With a district heating system 85 per cent of our heating dollars will stay local.
This will put millions back into the local economy that currently leave our town.
It does not make sense to be dependent on peak oil and gas for our heating needs when we have all the wood waste we need in our backyard. Plus with two new local pellet mills starting up it seems to make sense.
Instead of asking for handouts and grants why not come up with our own solutions to annual shortfalls in the budget.
The demands on government budgets will continue to outweigh available funds. District heating is a no brainer.
This is the beauty of local politics, I make decisions for the best of my community and not my political career.
To not increase taxes to achieve this goal for district heating I would be negligent in my job that I was elected to do. District heating is a long term sustainable solution for our community. It is also carbon neutral and positions Burns Lake as a North American leader.
One concern I have is to raise taxes and not achieve our goal.
If we raise taxes we need to be able to accomplish our goal so there will soon be a revenue stream back into the community.
So dependent on the assessments I am still interested in raising taxes to accomplish district heating and improvements to our infrastructure that will benefit our community for years to come.
I know Lakes District News likes to use percentages, but I will work to keep the increase to a minimum.
Currently, I feel Burns Lake has an innovative council that is moving Burns Lake forward in leaps and bounds.
We can no longer afford to rely on government grants to support ourselves.
If we look around the globe governments of all sizes are running massive deficits to please the electorate and stay elected.
It is important to know the village does not run a deficit and our budget is balanced.
A local wood fueled district heating system will be this council's legacy.
I am confident the public would buy more newspapers if it contained positive things about their community.
Quinten Beach