Only in Kelowna? Pity.

Kelowna residents have a new option for this Fall's municipal elections.

Calling themselves TaxpayersFirst, these candidates have the courage to recognize and state aloud the problems that residents in the Okanagan face.
Not just Kelowna residents.

Their premise is that there remains today only one taxpayer.
And that taxpayers are totally strapped and at their limits.
Their statements are compelling.

"Since 2008 Kelowna has suffered immensely from  the recession.  Property values are down, businesses have shut down, incomes have suffered and many have left for jobs in Alberta.  For a time our population actually shrank.  Through all this hardship, there has been no recession at City Hall. Property taxes continue to steadily increase, City Hall budgets continue to bloat and pay scales in the upper ranks of the administration continue to rise to unacceptable levels, infuriating the voters.

Our elected officials seem unconcerned with this reality.

 Currently, Kelowna property taxes are projected to rise over 23% in the next four years

(quote: Keith Grayston, City Financial Director).

Local governments have a license to take your money at will.

This has to stop."

I'm reminded of an anonymous comment attributed to an hourly civic worker in Kelowna:

"(There are) 500 bosses and only 100 workers to do it."

If any North Okanagan residents feel our area is better off, they are sadly mistaken.

Misguided, actually.

Out of touch, really.

Their Mission Statement contains some interesting plans, excerpted here:

• enact a Bylaw requiring Zero Property Tax Increases at City Hall for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018.
• order an Outside Audit of City Hall.
• honour decisions made by the current council providing they make economic sense.
• arguments about "competing with the private sector for wages" are old; almost 300 of the 700+ city employees earn over $75K a year, not counting benefits, which is the average income of an entire Kelowna family.
• benefits to our top bureaucrats, including pensions, are far beyond those commonly received in the private sector.   Top Kelowna bureaucrats have awarded themselves the most lucrative public pension plan found anywhere in Canada, even better than the top provincial and federal employee pensions.
• red tape continues to make doing business not only difficult but expensive.  The immense cost of this excessive administration is an unnecessary tax burden for our citizens;
• firmly believing in less expensive government, it's time for a municipality in B.C. to provide leadership on the issue of rising taxes and excessive red tape.

The North Okanagan's residents can only hope the group's focus is contagious, and spreads northward.

And very very soon.

"The best reason for cloning I've ever heard of," asserts Kia.

Their group would shudder at the bureaucracy the North Okanagan faces!

Good luck to them.