We are not getting that full truth, which it is my belief that makes the city manager a liar.
Just along the same lines as the cities CFO said at council, with a wink wink nudge nudge, that taxes are not going up because of the arena. She too, was telling a partial truth. And the only reason why she could get away with the response was because the question was related to "this year". And of course, since the city really didn't spend any money, it's kind of hard to raise taxes on something not yet disbursed. DUH. But hey, the city ran around screaming and cheering that taxes were not going up. .. And you fell for it. Right?
Anyway, getting back to dear Simon, who was quoted as saying :
“If you take the arena project, the city office tower, and you take Stantec, there’s a billion and a half dollars worth of investment into the core and that will be sufficient to pay off clearly any of the municipal portion on the arena”What Simon fails to add is this. All of the tax revenues from the CRL zone, based on the existing relocation of other businesses, means the areas vacated are no longer going to pay those property taxes. Empty buildings do not generate tax revenue. So those 10's or 100's of millions of tax dollars are lost. When you add into this the fact that all new property taxes raised within the CRL zone will NOT be going into paying for the required services the city and it's residents needs (fire, police, infrastructure etc) then this means we are in reality, out DOUBLE the amount of money required to pay for those same fire, police, infrastructure type items.
So, with a loss of double the hundreds of millions, I'm thrilled to know that Edmonton is becoming much more effective in dealing with crime and stuff, and we can start to get rid of the extra cops and fire fighters and paving equipment contracts that will no longer be needed.
Of course, the above statement is an oxymoron, because taxes WILL go up to recover the loss of the revenue stolen from city taxes, in order to support a billionaire. To think otherwise... well, I'm sorry. I'll call a spade a spade. You are just stupid.
By the way, did you note the part where he included the "city office tower"? Isn't that the one where city employees are all supposed to be going to? I seem to recall something about the city not paying property taxes on places it has. Maybe I'm wrong... *coughs
Have you also forgotten about that portion of the education tax which is part of property taxes, being stolen from our children? Meh... the kids certainly don't need that money, because you know, the teachers love teaching so much they will do it for free. Course, with that lost revenue for schools, you have to know your fees to send kids to school will go up. Buses, books, art supplies. But you don't care, right? After all, we have to support a poor billionaire. And even our Mayor has expressed delight in taking that portion of the taxes away from the children.
Yet another farce presented to the people was the item of Katz getting parking revenues. One would think that would mean he would be able to keep all of the parking money from the arena parking at the building. What you were not told is that the parking money is not JUST limited to "his" palace. What you were also NOT told was that the city is paying ... ops.. I mean you are paying ... to replace all of those parking meters in the area, with new fancy electronic programmable meters, so they can RAISE the price of parking.. ops, I mean so they can give Katz a lot more money. And of course, the spin provided for that aspect was that "we have to be competitive".
So much more is yet to come. The question is, since we all know that ignorance is bliss...
Just how blissful are you? Sheep being what they are and all.
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