Chris Clegg
Two citizens appeared at High Prairie town council’s meeting June 10 with similar concerns: the sorry state of some streets and yards in town.
Complaints of tall grass, weeds growing rampant, derelict cars scattered in yards. Citizens see it each day during a quick drive around their community.
If anyone believes High Prairie is any different than Peace River, Donnelly, Girouxville or McLennan, think again. True, some communities are more unsightly than others but the problem exists everywhere.
It is far too easy for local politicians to beat the drum and say the problem exists due to lack of pride. It is a feeble and pathetic excuse and one that does address a deeper issue they do not want to admit: money!
The world turns on money. The more money people have, the happier they are. There is an alarming trend over the last several years that people have less disposable income. What does this have to do with untidy lawns. Plenty!
People are not stupid. When people make the effort to tidy their residence and improve the appearance, along comes your loving village or town council. The next thing they do is increase the value of your property (assessment) which raises your taxes. In effect, the same councils that encourage homeowners to tidy their yards turn around and penalize the same residents who go the extra mile to do so.
This makes sense? Either way, your council is going to sock it to you!
To worsen matters, there isn’t a single council that apologizes for this action. This “take the money and run” attitude has to stop when it comes to taxation.
It reminds us of elderly residents at Joussard years ago in their nice quiet hamlet. Then it boomed. Land values rose so high some seniors could not afford to live in their houses any longer. The loving M.D. tried to sell to seniors the fact they were richer when money was not the issue.
“I just want to live here and die in my home,” to paraphrase the sentiment of one senior.
In High Prairie, taxes rise and rise and rise. Even CAO David Joy wrote recently that homeowners appear to have reached the limit of “what they can afford to bear.”
So now, council wants yards tidied up so they can increase property assessment and make you pay even more! Wonderful! Heck of a way to say thanks!
A solution would be to freeze the municipal portion of taxes if the property owner made a concerted effort to tidy up the place. Rather than punish the homeowner, give a break to say thank you. Such a policy extends to improvement in industrial buildings.
There are details to be worked out. Limit the tax break to one year or two years. Make sure a homeowner is eligible only once every 10 or 20 years. Do anything except punish them! Do something to say “thank you” instead of taking more money from the homeowner and running away to the next conference in a fancy hotel.
Some municipalities have a similar policy. Good for them! They realize an incentive works far better than the heavy-handed fist so many of our elected officials love to use because they love to have power. Implementing cleanup orders and fines does not work. It only worsens the problem for homeowners and angers them. Lord knows, homeowners pay enough taxes already.
But government’s insatiable need for more money seems to be far more important.
Pride is not the only issue here. Money is also part of the problem and one too many of our local governments do not want to address. It is a bigger problem than too many narrow-minded politicians want to admit.