Hamilton city council has a spending problem, no doubt about it. More telling is the amount of accumulated debt, which is $355 million for 2011, and will be $745 million for 2012 and will reach $1,042 billion by 2020.
This is unsustainable, given our shrinking property tax base. This year, over 14,000 Hamiltonians are collecting social service payments and another 14,000 are collecting ODSP. This too, is unsustainable.
On top of all this, council is still in the entertainment business, that cost property tax payers millions to bail out this year, due to mistakes made by the brain trust charged with running the three entities that make up HECFI.
Obviously this is not sustainable, no matter how much tax money is poured down a black hole. Even the city council live feed hardly ever works properly, despite the vast improvements in technology we have grown used to over the last 10 years.
Having lived in Hamilton most of my adult life, I can honestly say I’m not impressed with this council, compared to all the other I have observed over the years. Hopefully other fed up taxpayers have long memories and will say so at the ballot box in 2014.
Mark-Alan Whittle
Hamilton Mountain
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