To the Editor:
For the record, my vote is no on West Creston fire protection. For the record, my vote for the Creston and District Community Complex to entice new doctors to the area who make somewhere in the area of $350,000 a year was also no, but my taxes got nearly doubled anyway for a facility I cannot afford to use even if I lived closer and had the time.
These add-ons to the tax burden seem to appear with some regularity, and it also seems they are the brainchild of those with a cause or the rich with the affluence of a move from Calgary or Vancouver or employment in the North with one of the many corporate gougers. This affluence is not something I am averse to. More power to them; after all, the government loves them, and why not?
On the other hand, the community of Creston is comprised of loggers, farmers and service people. These people were first here for the peace, quiet, slow pace and relatively low cost of living. Then in came the migrants from east and west with pocketsful of cash and they readily spend, thinking what they spent is hell of a deal compared with what they left behind.
Rest assured that there is an enormous difference between the pay scales of the two different groups, and slowly but surely the latter group is being sidelined into serfdom, unable to negotiate a debt load, cope with soaring corporate greed and government at all levels increasing the tax burden without a thought in the world as to what is driving this garburator or any concerns for who can afford and who cannot afford. The “have” group, now established in the valley, suddenly is on a binge of want: “Get rid of that airstrip because it makes too much noise,” and “Build a rec centre because we need more doctors.” It would likely surprise you to know how many of these folks keep their money offshore and retain professionals who know how to circumvent taxes.
The government must be able to see this shift occurring regardless of how subtle it is. The government will also be obligated to witness the downfall of the middle class with somewhere around 10 per cent, maybe less in the final analysis, of the population allocated to the upper class. You can snort if you like, but it is occurring as a direct result of government, corporate greed and the rich.
I invite you to research the meaning of responsible government in a so-called democratic country and ask yourself what it is going to look like in a few years. You might read up on the French Revolution of the late 1700s because, as I see it, there appears to be a similarity between that group and the present route of the poor and overtaxed of today. I am glad I will not be here to see it.
In any case, I want you to know my pension cannot afford any more taxation, in particular for an institution that will afford me absolutely not one penny’s worth of good, an institution which, forever and a day, I and others like me will have to pay for forever, year after year, including the costs of misguided engineering and cost overruns. My suggestion for the rec centre was and will remain the same as for the proposed fire hall: Let those who want it pay for it and leave the poor to their subsistence and survival.
See you at the sheriff’s sale where the rich get rich and the poor get poorer.
F.M. Woods
West Creston