I was born in Creston in June 1961. That year my father Sam Rota, while working for West Kootenay Power, started the first garbage collection service in town called “Garby’s”. Two years later, he sold the garbage collection business to the Town of Creston.
My education background includes a Bachelor of Science and post-graduate study in computing science. I have a 40-year career in business, science, and technology.
As a local entrepreneur and commercial property developer, I was told on three separate occasions several years apart by Town staff their ubiquitous authoritative message that, “We are watching you.” I thought this was rather odd and ominous, sounding a little too much like George Orwell’s famous book “1984” or like the 1950s “Stepford Wives” and was simply too authoritative for me to stomach for very long.
Then came the recent two years of ridiculous external globalism forces the likes of pandemic masks, vaccines, business closures, and skyrocketing property values.
As a commercial property developer, I was also asked to pay big money $50,000 and receive nothing in return.
Years later, as an entrepreneur of another spontaneous summer project, I was secretly being filmed while ticketed for not having a business license, on my property by the bylaw officer, without my knowledge.
I have a better and bigger plan for the future that does not involve spying on citizens or fining them for breaking stupid rules, or practising extortion upon naive commercial developers or following stupid globalist ideals.
I believe the property tax system (current funding model) is obsolete and prone to being influenced by internal factors, such as a natural desire to spend capital expenditure on mega projects that benefit the community, and external factors such as skyrocketing property values, globalism, communism, federalism, and vancouverism.
The future funding of the town needs to become more like a pay-for-service based system.
Creston residents should vote for me if they are interested in:
• No property taxes. The property tax system will be overhauled and re-purposed so that citizens only pay for town services they receive and not for capital expenditure projects.
• No more authoritative, globalist, communist bylaws or permits. Simple recommendations would be to follow the building code. We would be here (as a resource) to help you succeed instead of penalizing you for non-compliance.
• Laissez-faire lifestyle. Citizens are free to do whatever they want on their property. After all, it is your money to spend, not ours.