Skip to content

City Q5: 20 Questions for Langley City Council candidates

 

Dave Hall – No, Translink was founded on the basis of property tax and the province has gone back to that well too many times. It is a misconception that property tax is a potential “additional” source as it continues to be an existing operating revenue. There are other potential sources that need to be embraced for ongoing funding and that includes the carbon tax, an increased sales tax, comprehensive bridge and road pricing , and operational savings through a wide variety of measures ranging from scaling back management salaries to finally implementing Quickpass and overcoming fare evasion.

Miriam Marshall – No. Transit should be partly user pay and partly subsidies through taxes, but taking from property taxes is not the right “pot”, especially for those south of the Fraser where our service is poor. 

Nathan Pachal – No. You can read Leap Ahead: A transit plan for Metro Vancouver which I co-authored. How to better fund transit is detailed in that report. 

http://sfb.nathanpachal.com/2013/08/advocates-unveil-transit-expansion-plan.html

Carla Robin – No, although this is the easiest way to raise taxes, increasing property taxes is not an equitable method of covering the costs of transportation in the Metro region. Innovative thinking needs to seriously happen to address this, rather than the current funding  structure. 

Rudy Stoorteboom – No. It’s bad enough that the municipality collects taxes for TransLink, the School Board and Metro Vancouver Utilities plus, paying for all policing of Federal & Provincial Laws as well as not being reimbursed for Medical Emergency calls, that make up the majority of calls for our First Responders. Although quick access to public transportation adds value to a property, TransLink is already collecting enough through our property taxes.  Note: If outside agencies collected their own taxes instead of downloading their responsibilities onto the municipality, tax payers would see the City’s actual Budget much more clearly.