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| Your letter carrier has glad tidings from the City of Prince Rupert this week |
The annual call for cash to fund the city's many operations and those of organizations for which it collects tax for started making its was to residents with the Tuesday mail and heralds the decision of City Council to hold off on any tax increase in this election year.
That decision was a move which should for the most part, depending on how BC Assessment has assessed your property this year, mean no increase to your tax bill and in some cases maybe even a reduction in them for this year.
Council moved forward the taxation process forward last month when it approved the Financial plan presented by the City's Financial Officer and voted to put in place this years Tax Bylaw, setting the rates for tax collection for this year.
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| The 2018 Tax Table released May 11, 2018 (click to enlarge) |
The deadline for payment of your taxes comes up on July 3rd.
The home mailing comes with what has now become the traditional update from the Mayor, this years review of 2017-18 featuring many of the recent themes of Mayor Brain's Hays 2.0 presentation (including a reminder that it's available for viewing online)
In the letter to residents the Mayor notes the new approach to Watson Island and the potential for new lease and tax revenues, while also highlighting the challenging taxation legislation and revenue sharing agreements that he says no longer serve our community's interest, making note of the of the Port Property Tax Cap and the Ridley island Tax Sharing agreement.
The Mayor's letter also puts some focus on Council's decision to not raise the residential mill rate for the year, while maintaining existing services.
He also points towards partnerships in the community as the way forward, observing that approach to the McKay Street Park, Mariners park, Trail redevelopment and the rehabilitation of Doug Kerr Field as some areas where those partnerships have already found success.
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| Mayor Lee Brain's letter to residents for 2018 (click to enlarge) |
Included in the mailing is a short preview of some of the areas that Council wants to put the focus on when it comes to their achievements for the year, among those notes on the list are the Positive announcement from Pembina for Watson Island, last years paving projects, the creation of the kayak launch at Cow Bay, the level of housing approvals from Council and the near completion of the first phase of the City's water project.
You can learn more about some of those themes from our archive pages here:
Watson Island
Housing in the Northwest
Waterfront Development
Major Infrastructure
The larger overview of Civic talking points will be delivered in June with the publication of the City's 2018 Annual Report.
The tax notice also comes with a breakdown as to how those hard earned tax payment dollars of ours will be put to use. From that review the Police, Fire and Civic Operations segment of the tax collection make for the largest bite from the money collected.
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| How The City spends your tax dollars (click to enlarge) |
The Notice also offers up some options for residents when it comes to making payment on their taxes, with some background on the Grant process and the option of deferral among the items of interest.
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| You have some payment options (click to enlarge) |
You can review the path towards the tax bill notices from our archive pages and our feature on this years Budget process.
For more notes related to City Council Discussions see our archive page here.
Cross posed from the North Coast Review
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