Pettition: Please save the Fort Garry Library

[thurmas]

Brian Bowman is at it again bungling a city budget of almost $2 billion a year but cutting the most essential civic services Libraries. Please sign the petition to save the Fort Garry Library it is a part of the fabric of Old Fort Garry and still used by thousands every year.

https://www.change.org/p/mayor-brian...pt&utm_term=cs

[Winnipegger]

Pick one:

1. Decades of property tax freezes and decreases resulting in us now having the lowest municipal property taxes out of any major city in Canada; or
2. An Acceptable level of public goods and services with libraries in every neighborhood

You simply cannot have both. For decades, at least at the city level, Winnipeggers have chosen fiscal austerity and a decrease in the accepted standard of public goods and services in return for zero or marginal property tax increases. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Also, the city does not have a budget of almost $2 billion - that is the consolidated number which includes utilities and operating agencies which function more like businesses and are separate entities from the tax-supported side of municipal finances. The actual tax-supported budget, that funds things like roads, police, fire, recreation, and libraries is around $1.1 billion.

You get what you pay for. Don't like it? Write your city councilor and ask them to raise our property taxes.

Fun fact: if Winnipeg raised it's property taxes at the rate of local CPI inflation since 1997 instead of freezing it or decreasing it, we would have over $100 million extra in tax revenue annually, which would have totaled around $2 billion over the past 20 years. Think of all those things $2 billion would have purchased during that time, including 3 additional legs of rapid transit, a fully grade-separated ring road, and many community centres, police stations, and fire halls. Under this scheme, the average municipal bill would now be around $1,900 per year, roughly $130 more than the current of $1,770 per year.

Instead, everyone around here is so keen on saving $130 a year that any politician who promises to freeze taxes yet another 4 years immediately gets the vote. Talk about a backwards-thinking city.

[drew]

If the Province would get around to removing the education portion of our tax bills, it would certainly allow the City more flexibility in raising it's taxes to a more reasonable level.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

Pick one:

1. Decades of property tax freezes and decreases resulting in us now having the lowest municipal property taxes out of any major city in Canada; or
2. An Acceptable level of public goods and services with libraries in every neighborhood

You simply cannot have both. For decades, at least at the city level, Winnipeggers have chosen fiscal austerity and a decrease in the accepted standard of public goods and services in return for zero or marginal property tax increases. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Also, the city does not have a budget of almost $2 billion - that is the consolidated number which includes utilities and operating agencies which function more like businesses and are separate entities from the tax-supported side of municipal finances. The actual tax-supported budget, that funds things like roads, police, fire, recreation, and libraries is around $1.1 billion.

You get what you pay for. Don't like it? Write your city councilor and ask them to raise our property taxes.

Fun fact: if Winnipeg raised it's property taxes at the rate of local CPI inflation since 1997 instead of freezing it or decreasing it, we would have over $100 million extra in tax revenue annually, which would have totaled around $2 billion over the past 20 years. Think of all those things $2 billion would have purchased during that time, including 3 additional legs of rapid transit, a fully grade-separated ring road, and many community centres, police stations, and fire halls. Under this scheme, the average municipal bill would now be around $1,900 per year, roughly $130 more than the current of $1,770 per year.

Instead, everyone around here is so keen on saving $130 a year that any politician who promises to freeze taxes yet another 4 years immediately gets the vote. Talk about a backwards-thinking city.

I agree that property tax caps and freezes should never have been done that is why the city has the infrastructure problems it has today since the late 90's with Glen Murray.

[blacktrojan3921]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

Pick one:

1. Decades of property tax freezes and decreases resulting in us now having the lowest municipal property taxes out of any major city in Canada; or
2. An Acceptable level of public goods and services with libraries in every neighborhood

You simply cannot have both. For decades, at least at the city level, Winnipeggers have chosen fiscal austerity and a decrease in the accepted standard of public goods and services in return for zero or marginal property tax increases. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Also, the city does not have a budget of almost $2 billion - that is the consolidated number which includes utilities and operating agencies which function more like businesses and are separate entities from the tax-supported side of municipal finances. The actual tax-supported budget, that funds things like roads, police, fire, recreation, and libraries is around $1.1 billion.

You get what you pay for. Don't like it? Write your city councilor and ask them to raise our property taxes.

Fun fact: if Winnipeg raised it's property taxes at the rate of local CPI inflation since 1997 instead of freezing it or decreasing it, we would have over $100 million extra in tax revenue annually, which would have totaled around $2 billion over the past 20 years. Think of all those things $2 billion would have purchased during that time, including 3 additional legs of rapid transit, a fully grade-separated ring road, and many community centres, police stations, and fire halls. Under this scheme, the average municipal bill would now be around $1,900 per year, roughly $130 more than the current of $1,770 per year.

Instead, everyone around here is so keen on saving $130 a year that any politician who promises to freeze taxes yet another 4 years immediately gets the vote. Talk about a backwards-thinking city.

You assume as if most people on this forum choose 1 lmao. It seems unbelievably asinine that there are so many people within the city that are against raising the property taxes, if the comments on this piece are to be taken at face value.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...city-1.5379798

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Brian Bowman is at it again bungling a city budget of almost $2 billion a year but cutting the most essential civic services Libraries. Please sign the petition to save the Fort Garry Library it is a part of the fabric of Old Fort Garry and still used by thousands every year.

https://www.change.org/p/mayor-brian...pt&utm_term=cs

Wow thats rich! LOL!

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by drew

If the Province would get around to removing the education portion of our tax bills, it would certainly allow the City more flexibility in raising it's taxes to a more reasonable level.

Education needs to be funded on a tax based on income not on property which is about archaic as it can get!

[blacktrojan3921]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

Education needs to be funded on a tax based on income not on property which is about archaic as it can get!

Both income and Property tax can work. It becomes a problem for either when they are too low to meet public demand.

It's one of the reasons why, thanks to California's infamous Prop 13 (that cut and capped property taxes), education has become a mess in that state despite having high funding.

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...hat-went-wrong

[CoryB]

The announced library closures, including Fort Garry, have long been on the books. Winnipeg Library Service is well into a multi-year plan to relocate a large number of older branches into either purpose built facilities (Transconna) or commerical leases (Charleswood). That these closures are happening was decided on many years ago. The main change to the plan is the new locations won't be opening as scheduled.

From memory the Fort Garry library was to close and relocate to the recreational campus that is being planned for Bridgewater. The libraries are part of recreational campuses is an even older plan btw.

[morty]

Originally Posted by CoryB

The announced library closures, including Fort Garry, have long been on the books. Winnipeg Library Service is well into a multi-year plan to relocate a large number of older branches into either purpose built facilities (Transconna) or commerical leases (Charleswood). That these closures are happening was decided on many years ago. The main change to the plan is the new locations won't be opening as scheduled.

From memory the Fort Garry library was to close and relocate to the recreational campus that is being planned for Bridgewater. The libraries are part of recreational campuses is an even older plan btw.

The City owns the Fort Garry library building and just did extensive renovations last year. The closure was not at all planned until the Community Services department had to propose budget cuts for the new 4 year method.

The Pembina Trail library was the one that was going to be relocated to Bridgwater, as it's in a leased space.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by blacktrojan3921

You assume as if most people on this forum choose 1 lmao. It seems unbelievably asinine that there are so many people within the city that are against raising the property taxes, if the comments on this piece are to be taken at face value.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...city-1.5379798

Problems are:

1. With increases in utility and other costs and no appreciable upwards movement in wages, people are cash-strapped and can ill afford increased property taxes;

2. People no longer trust the city (or governments in general for that matter, read police HQ) to spend money wisely and get good value for it. For example, the total cost of the SWBRT is astronomical for what it is, and compared with superior projects in other cities.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Problems are:

1. With increases in utility and other costs and no appreciable upwards movement in wages, people are cash-strapped and can ill afford increased property taxes;

2. People no longer trust the city (or governments in general for that matter, read police HQ) to spend money wisely and get good value for it. For example, the total cost of the SWBRT is astronomical for what it is, and compared with superior projects in other cities.

How much more would it have cost to have built the police HQ properly from the ground up? Or a LRT system from day one? Winnipeggers tend to prefer the cheaper option no matter what kind of compromises it involves, so we end up with these cockamamie sitcom-like schemes to save a few bucks. But inevitably we end up paying 90% of the cost of the preferred option while getting at most 50% of the functionality.

It's a very penny wise, pound foolish mentality, but politicians aren't interested in challenging it.

[drew]

^ I think WRT to the Police Headquarters - we need to account for the cost of keeping and retaining an existing building in the downtown core.

At least we can say it was a somewhat noble pursuit in the adaptive reuse of an existing structure as opposed to sending it all to the landfill and starting from scratch.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by esquire

How much more would it have cost to have built the police HQ properly from the ground up? Or a LRT system from day one? Winnipeggers tend to prefer the cheaper option no matter what kind of compromises it involves, so we end up with these cockamamie sitcom-like schemes to save a few bucks. But inevitably we end up paying 90% of the cost of the preferred option while getting at most 50% of the functionality.

It's a very penny wise, pound foolish mentality, but politicians aren't interested in challenging it.

It's the good old "Made in Manitoba" solution. Whenever you hear that term, you know that we're in for a sh*tshow.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by drew

^ I think WRT to the Police Headquarters - we need to account for the cost of keeping and retaining an existing building in the downtown core.

At least we can say it was a somewhat noble pursuit in the adaptive reuse of an existing structure as opposed to sending it all to the landfill and starting from scratch.

The police Headquarters going into the old post office was ill conceived from the get go, it was not what the WPS wanted, right location wrong building!

The whole thing was pushed through to benefit a few, now it’s an impractical building with ongoing flaws and the WPS will eventually need a new headquarters sooner than later!

[StNorberter]

Originally Posted by morty

The Pembina Trail library was the one that was going to be relocated to Bridgwater, as it's in a leased space.

Are you sure? Doesn't make much sense for the city to be leasing a purpose built structure that they renovated within the last 5 yrs.

[bomberjet]

Is the Library actually closing or is that one of the proposed options during the budget process. Note that they look at every avenue for making the budget work. In the end most of the proposals don't go ahead for obvious reasons.

[bomberjet]

Normal folk do not understand how taxes and finance work in the daily lives. Paying bills, taking loans and such. Nevermind running a city. More taxes = bad. My Facebook feed says that loud and clear.

Most people are dumb to politics and finance and just follow along with whatever propaganda is pushed their way. Such as Andrew Scheer, Jason Kenney and all those types. Disclaimer: that is not an endorsement of Trudeau.