Ooops, someone pointed out an inadvertant omission in my post (the word "credit" after "property tax." Corrected version below:
From: [email protected] [email protected] Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:35:03 -0400 To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Subject: RE: [Bikies] sidewalks on Camden Rd - PBMVC on March 24 Robbie Webber [email protected] wrote on Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:25:56 -0500: > Assessments For Camden Road Street Assessment District - 2009." Sounds all > very boring, but apparently a group of residents don't want sidewalks on > this street. If you would like to view the current documents, the link is [snip] > If you are in favor of good walking environments, and especially if you live > in the area or know someone who does, please make sure that you submit [snip] > I do not have confirmation on this, but I have been told that some of the > opponents do not want walking to be easy for certain nearby residents and > groups. I will leave that to your imagination. I doubt it's anything as sinister as that, but simply a financial decision. Because of the absurd way the city fails to pay for sidewalks, this kind of PUBLIC infrastructure is made a burden imposed on INDIVIDUAL homeowners. If I were in that situation, I can't say for sure that I wouldn't also oppose sidewalks on my street. (I already have sidewalk in front of my house, so have already paid the price, even though it's a only a three house long sidewalk to nowhere... sidewalks are hit or miss in my neighbourhood and on my street, a little bit of sidewalk here followed by a stretch of no sidewalk, et cetera). I'm all for sidewalks, but the city has to reform the unethical way it pays for them (or rather, doesn't pay for them). This is PUBLIC infrastructure, available for all to use, so the costs should be spread among ALL property taxpayers. (Furthermore, during winter, as part of Fit City Madison, homeowners who don't have sidewalks should be assigned to shovel the sidewalks of homeowners who have "graciously" paid for sidewalks for everyone else. :-)) If you were running for re-election, I'd ask you to sponsor legislation to correct this immoral inequity. Larry Nelson has commented on this before, saying it would be unfair to change it now, because those who have sidewalks now and have already paid shouldn't also have to pay a share of the costs under a new system. I have an easy solution to that problem: give homeowners with existing sidewalks a sidewalk property tax credit for some number of years that approximates the expected life of a sidewalk. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web LIVE – Free email based on Microsoft® Exchange technology - http://link.mail2web.com/LIVE _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
