Those miffed about paying higher municipal taxes this year may be able to do something about it—but it will take some leg work.
Legislation is slated to be introduced this spring that would allow taxpayers the right to ask for a referendum on any tax increases, including those imposed by a municipality.
If area residents wish to have a renal dialysis unit in Fort Frances, they’re going to have start writing to the Ministry of Health.
That’s the message nephrologist Dr. William McCready and nurse Barbara Adams of the Thunder Bay Regional Dialysis Program had to say to a group of doctors, nurses and other community members at a meeting last night at La Verendrye Health Centre
Young boaters have been targeted as Canada attempts to make its waters safer under a federal government licensing program, effective Jan. 1 of next year.
Under the new regulations, everyone under the age of 16 will be required to obtain a licence to operate a motorboat on Canadian waters.
It will be a full house at the Clover Valley Farmers’ Market tomorrow and Saturday, with every inch of vending space let out for the annual Easter market.
Blair and Donna Lowey, of Lowey’s Greenhouse here, have been organizing the event. He said the market will feature a wide array of items to help area residents spruce up their homes—and dinner tables—this Easter.
It was a near-speechless Christine Carpenter who accepted the Bill Gibson Memorial Award on Friday night at the Rainy River Federation of Agriculture’s annual spring dinner and dance in the Barwick Hall.
Carpenter wasn’t any more talkative when contacted by the Times yesterday.
District municipalities are still trying to figure out just what impact the province’s new download numbers will have on their 1998 budgets—and local taxes.
While all agree the numbers have changed, no one is quite sure what the final impact will be. But some are optimistic the “download” could come out revenue neutral after all.
A group of local entrepreneurs stepped in to take the reins of the local abattoir project at last night’s meeting in Barwick, keeping alive the hopes of having a kill-plant built in the district.
It’s been hacked numerous times already but tonight the committee of the whole will draw the purse strings even tighter as it looks to find another $685,000 in savings from the town’s proposed 1998 budget.
“That’s still to be achieved to reach a zero tax increase,” CAO Bill Naturkach noted Monday.
He also admitted this has been the most difficult budget to bring in line.
Municipalities may be scrambling with the downloading of services now but some are looking to the turn of the century when the province’s special circumstances funds run out.
That $75-million provincial fund is in place for 1998 and ’99 only. After that, said Janis Tomkinson with the Ministry of Finance’s communications department, municipalities will have to realize that savings.
The final numbers are in from the province and Fort Frances will use these figures—not those billed by the agencies—to decide how much municipal taxpayers will be paying for the “downloaded” services in 1998.
And if the agencies’ calculations are different, the town said the agencies will have to battle it out with the province.
