A fascinating exchange of opinions and views on the way we are taxed. Sharman and Muir go at it.

opinionandcommentThe exchange of opinions between an informed citizen and an elected member of city council can at times be fascinating.  This is the kind of conversation that can and should take place at delegations at council

The conversation that follows is between Councillor Paul Sharman (ward 5) and Aldershot resident Tom Muir.

The remarks in black are Muir writing.  The response from Sharman are in upper case blue letters.  Muir’s rebuttal’s  are in red.

Muir: I have had some opportunity over the last year or two to hear about the economic plan, strategic plan, and BEDC vision, but have not studied them in any detail.

OK, PLEASED TO DISCUSS THEM WITH YOU AND ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS.

I’m away for a while so it will have to wait till I return.

Muir making a point

Aldershot resident Tom Muir

Muir: You indicate there is an aligned new OP, but I must disagree, as we do not have a new OP as of yet, at least one that has gone through the required public consultation, debate, and Council approval processes under the Planning Act.

YOU ARE CORRECT, HOWEVER, APPROVED REPORTS IN SETTING UP THE OP REQUIRED THAT THE WORK BE DONE IN ALIGNMENT. THERE WAS MASSIVE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH THE STRATEGIC PLAN. THE OP IS A DETAILED DELIVERY MECHANISM OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN

That’s part of the problem I think. The strategic plan is more about vision, is vague about specifics, and is less concrete and quantitative, which is where the OP enters. Residents are concerned about what the OP will entail with height, density, and intensification. That’s where the concern of disconnection with what residents will buy into, and the push-back is as you know.

Muir: Frankly, I have found it disturbing that the planning department seems to be making up an OP on the run, with developers, into something they would like it to be. The public and affected residents have been disconnected, and have not been given any opportunity for buy-in. Thus you have seen them giving Council push-back, so that way of getting a new aligned OP isn’t working and won’t work until the public processes are completed.

Paul Sharman served on the Shape Burlington Committee along with Lancaster. He was a bit of a "bull in a china shop" with that organization and brought the trait along with him when he got electd to Council.

Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman

THIS IS A GENERALIZED CONCLUSION ON A SINGLE SPECIFIC APPLICATION. ALL OTHER APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN IN ALIGNMENT. HOWEVER, AS YOU CORRECTLY POINTED OUT ABOVE THE NEW OP IS IN PROCESS OF BEING DEVELOPED AND IT WILL BE REVIEWED AND APPROVED IN PUBLIC AND WITH PUBLIC INPUT. YOUR INPUT WILL BE APPRECIATED

Any generalization I may make is based on several recent years of engaging with INSPIRE talks, several OP related meetings, and development proposals, where it was apparent to residents that the planners were doing just what I described. The recent ADI example is this kind of planning thought in action. The development applications that have been in alignment are, to my experience, those that follow the OP by right height and densities with perhaps some acceptable tweaks.

Muir: Anyways this issue is an aside, and I only said this because you cited it as a part of some grand plan, which is my main point here.

THERE ABSOLUTELY ARE THOROUGHLY THOUGHT OUT, APPROVES, PLANS THAT HAD EXTENSIVE PUBLIC REVIEW. YOU WILL FIND IN THE REPORTS PROVIDED BY STAFF FULL DETAILS OF THE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROCESS.

I think you misunderstand my meaning here. I was only lumping the plans and documents you referred to – strategic, economic, BEDC, – into one grand plan frame. No offense or thoughts that these are not fully proper in the records of process. I did this to fit it into my main points of comment.

Muir: All the plans and so on that you list as being tied into the budget, are high level, visionary, and abstract – they are sort of wish lists, suggesting various paths to follow, and targets to meet. At least this is a summary of what I see these as, for present purposes.

SUCH IS THE NATURE OF PLANNING. STARTS WITH THE BIG STROKES AND DEVELOPS INTO THE DETAILS. BUT THESE ARE NOT SUGGESTIONS. THEY ARE APPROVED BY COUNCIL WITH THE OBJECTIVE OF IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR THE CITIZENS OF BURLINGTON WITHIN A DEFINED FUTURE TIME FRAME

I’m not disputing what you say. I’ve been involved in many plans myself. The fact they are all approved doesn’t matter in my comment points. Your last point about the quality of life is directly affected by my point raised and further described below. I have been hearing this about improving the lot of citizens for decades, and I see not much that describes how this has actually happened and is manifested. It’s easy to say, hard to deliver, and it needs to be confirmed by the citizens themselves. The budget and financial situation that I am talking about here are very direct measures of this quality of life.

Muir: My comments can be linked to these documents if you consider everything in them as contributing over time to a downstream integrated results endpoint. In my example here, I see this integrated results endpoint as the budget revenue-expenditure level, or gap, whether it be deficit or surplus. In other words, what is the bottom line of the business of the City? You should be concerned about this, but don’t appear to be in an active involved and publicly visible way.

THE BUDGET IS THE SHORT TERM ARTICULATION OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN. THE 20 YEAR TAX RATE SIMULATION IS AN EFFORT TO PROVIDE A BRIDGE. HOWEVER, THE CITY MANAGER IS COMMITTED TO BRING FORWARD A 5 YEAR FINANCIAL AND NO FINANCIAL OPERATING PLAN TO COMPLETE THE INFORMATION YOU SEEK, THIS YEAR. THE BUDGET REVIEW WAS EXTENSIVE BUT PERFORMED BY STAFF AS THEY PREPARED IT. I HAVE REVIEWED ALL THE DOCUMENTS AS WELL AS QUESTUIONS ASKED BY COUNCIL MEMBERS FOR WHICH THE ANSWERS ARE IN THE PUBLIC RECORD IN THE BUDGET REPORTS.

OK, you say there are activities underway to consider this concern. I want to be clear that I am using the conception I describe as a heuristic device to illustrate how all the plans eventually integrate their complexity into the budget, and financial performance, indicated by tax rate changes and revenue-expenditure numbers reflected in deficits and ever increasing taxes or the opposite.

Muir: This gap can be seen as the overall key performance indicator that is the integration of all the upstream planning, vision, and implementation aspects you mention. OK, NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN. I mean how the tax rates and increases, or decreases, reflect the gap – deficit or surplus – between revenue and expenditure is a performance indicator of how the upstream planning etc are working out.

Simply putting my point, are we digging the tax hole deeper for residents and business with our plans, or are we gradually building a prosperity fund – an accumulating surplus – and getting a source of leverage for some grander plans for all to enjoy? THE LATTER.I don’t see this in the 10 year forecast that I saw.

My concern, as I described it previously, is that in the 10 year budget forecast the integrated performance indicator of the accumulated revenue-expenditure gap remains in deficit the entire projected time horizon.

NOT SURE WHAT YOU ARE REFERRING TO. PLEASE SEND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT.

As previous point, I saw a 10 year forecast of tax increases in the Gazette, and that’s all I have right now. I imagine Pepper grabbed it from somewhere city official.

Muir: I have to assume that the budget-makers are using forecast of future growth and development, revenue and expenditure, and how these might be affected by the several plans and vision documents you mentioned. So the tax hole is getting deeper the entire budget timeline of 10 years.

YES WHAT YOU DESCRIBE IS THE BASIS OF THE DOCUMENTS. NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE TAX HOLE. HAD INFRASTRUCTURE RESERVES BEEN INITIATED SOONER THAN 2013 THE NEED TO ADD MONEY TO TAXES EVERY YEAR WOULD BE MUCH REDUCED. YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THAT NOW, BUT THE BENEFIT TO CITIZENS WAS THAT THEY ENJOYED LOWER TAXES OVER THE LAST MANY YEARS.

The tax hole is the ever-increasing tax take that just keeps increasing exponentially, produced by continuing deficits. I’m afraid the last sentence in this point should have been at the end of the previous paragraph. This is what I see for the 10 year forecast, and is the basis of the concern about doubling due to exponential increases.

Muir: So, in keeping to my point, the budget does not reflect a favorable performance of these high level, visionary, grand plans, as they appear when integrated, to continue to dig the tax hole deeper and the deficit gap continues.

BY THE WAY, ALTHOUGH CITY BUDGET INCREASED BY OVER 4% THE ACTUAL TAX INCREASE IS LESS THAN 2% FOR THE CITY COMPONENT AND THE TOTAL TAX INCREASE WILL BE ABOUT 2.66% COMPARED TO TORONTO INFLATION OF 2.19%. OF COURSE IT IS DILUTED BY A ZERO EDUCATION BUDGET INCREASE AND A REGION BUDGET INCREASE OF 1.9%. BUT WOULDN’T YOU RATHER FIX THE INFRASTRUCTURE HOLE UNDER THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES THAN WHEN EDUCATION AND THE REGION ARE STRUGGLING WITH SIMILAR INFLATIONARY CHALLENGES WITHOUT THE BENEFIT OF ASSESSMENT GROWTH.

This may all be true, but it is irrelevant to the concerns raised last year, and this year again, about the 10 year forecast of exponentially increasing city tax take. We are talking City and it doesn’t help with credibility to hide some concern behind the education and region increases that average the tax rate increase down.Your comment about education and region rates is double-edged, as I think they form a risk moving ahead and part of my concern. What happens if this changes negatively and what is the city going to do. And by the way, don’t forget the region charges for water and sewer separately from the taxes, and that always seems to increase substantially. So taking this into account is needed for a fair representation of the region’s tax or tax-like take.

Muir: This never-ending deficit will not help with development and growth in the city, but will in fact as as a damper on the ability of small and large business to thrive and survive.

MUCH HAS BEEN DONE TO REDUCE COSTS IN THE LAST 6 YEARS INCLUDING LOW TAX RATE INCREASES, A CAP ON HEADCOUNT SET AT 2010 LEVELS AND COMPENSATION LEVEL EQUAL TO INFLATION OR LESS IN COMPARISON TO 5% YEAR FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS LEADING UP TO AND THROUGH 2010. ALL OF THAT WAS OFFSET BY HAVING TO RAISE FUNDS FOR THE HOSPITAL….. ACTUALLY, THE CITY HAS DONE REMARKABLY WELL.

But that is not the point I made. For the next 10 years the city is in deficit, with increasing taxes, from what I saw, however remarkably well they have done as you say. I should have said something about homeowners and residential taxes, also not helping with citizen quality of life. It also feeds right into the inflationary cost of housing that we are experiencing.

Muir: This summarizes, and provides a basis for, my concerns.

AS I SAID, IT IS A COMPLEX ANALYSIS THAT SOME SIMPLIFY INTO ASSESSING THE ANNUAL BUDGET INCREASE.

Your statement seems to take my point too lightly. The complexity all channels downstream to a financial and budget performance integrated endpoint. This is not just simplified, as there are complicated flows that are integrated from your picture of complex analysis. The end result of all the complexity is the gap – deficit or surplus – and is it increasing or decreasing, positive or negative. I do not see anything but deficit for the entire 10 years of the city plans and strategy, according to the financial and budget info on the table right now. The annual budget increase is being driven by the complexity and the plans and strategies that are not delivering performance measured financially as not in deficit.

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7 comments to A fascinating exchange of opinions and views on the way we are taxed. Sharman and Muir go at it.conversation

  • Brian Roach

    What the hell did I just read? This was a back and forth exchange between Muir and Sharman, but rather than ask the questions or make the rebuttal remarks during the exchange you’ve inserted them afterwards? Makes it look like you were throwing a bunch of wisdom at him that he was ignoring (unless I’m missing something here).

    • Tom Muir

      Brian,
      Who are you writing to? The times on the comments confuse me.

      And if to me, please explain a little more your critique? Thanks.

      • Brian Roach

        Sure,

        Can you explain to me what the article is a summary of? Is this an email or text exchange you had with Sharman? And did you send the rebuttal comments to him? It just seems like an odd exchange. Question, Answer, Rebuttal (but no follow up to the rebuttal) then New Question.

  • craig

    having read this it appears both speak like politicians neither understood or listened to the other kind of wasted my time on this read sorry to say

    • Tom Muir

      craig,

      We weren’t talking, and having a conversation, so we weren’t listening.

      Instead we were writing and reading things, exchanging at different times, and that weren’t planned to be written. Each of us had points that emerged as the messages were exchanged.

      It was an argument or a debate in writing. It ended in stalemate and we didn’t arrive at full agreement. It wasn’t really meant to.

      But I think we understood each other, and what we were writing about.

      It was about how the city is merging the strategic plan with the budget and my comments about how that is resulting in ever increasing city taxes that are on a path to doubling.

      I’m sorry you didn’t understand it, or what we were doing.

      But I will take your waste of time into account in the future. I mean this. The conversation just turned out in an unintended format, and could have been better designed.

      However, please don’t refer to me as speaking as a politician, or I will call you something that you appear to be like in making such a personal comment.

  • In general the staff don’t seem to have any interest in engaging with the public. I’ve never had staff get back to me after a delegation and address any points I’ve made. I’ve never seen a survey or question that actually open – like how would you prefer to get to work? Or what is a reasonable height for buildings in your area?

    The staff seems entirely devoted to implementing “places to grow” and “mass intensification” as ordered by the province. If that makes Burlington a horrible place to live – it does’t seem like they think that is their problem. So long as x people have been forced into biking and living in 400 sq apartments – that’s the goal.

    • Phillip

      Greg, it also puts a lie to the recent pronouncements from City Hall, complete with plaques mounted at various locations in town, of its commitment to public engagement. Despite all the rhetoric spouted by Goldring and the council, decision after decision in this town has marginalized taxpayers/residents.