| Internet copy, if there are errors, please e-mail me with corrections: Hazel McCallion's Ultimate Act of Greed & Betrayal of Mississauga's Taxpayers Opening comments: More at the end. The bills are now coming due as the Mayor of Mississauga has been running the City of Mississauga into the ground and they are in the BILLIONS! This issue is starting to come to light and it should be considered to be understated and under reported at this point - the worse is likely still to come. For decades Hazel McCallion has clearly been putting off important work to keep taxes down and do recall for some 10 years has not raised them, in order to prey on peoples greed, so they would vote her back into the office of Mayor. So rather than create a real fully functioning City, one that has true mass transit (a rail system), she created a cheap knock-off that is starting to fall apart around her. She has not been called the Queen of Sprawl for nothing. Sprawl being the sum total of all the wrong kinds of planning, especially creating subdivisions that will become slums and largely abandoned when the effects of the End of Cheap Oil will take place. Preying on voters greed Hazel McCallion promised to not raise taxes, this meant not providing services that a city - communities should. Like providing its own garbage pick-up, a service transferred to the Region of Peel and off the City of Mississauga tax bill, BUT at what true cost? Well we know now, no matter how good you are at juggling the books at some point the bills all come due and they will only get bigger over time. The American dream has turned out to be a cancer, suburbia can not survive without cheap oil and that is coming to an end. To play the game of home in the suburbs, often called monster homes as they are too large for most people, requiring tons of furnishings just to fill the rooms and then there is the endless home improvements in hopes of increasing the homes value - all of this takes so much money that most people are very much in debt to buy the opium of the American dream. (It also take huge amounts of Cheap Oil) So a politician who irresponsibly campaigns for election, based on a platform of no tax hikes is just get people to put their own desires before the community's needs - GREED VOTERS. The Mayor claimed to be creating community's that would last and now we see they are going to fall apart unless huge amounts of money is poured into them as the Mayor was not a responsible business manager. A responsible business manager would never have let the financial affairs of a city get so out of hand. Mississaugans have been betrayed as the city they though existed, does not, but really they have only themselves to blame, after all how could Hazel do what other mayors could not? Magic? Yes, we know the Queen of Sprawl has developed the hell out of Mississaugans lands to fill the City's treasury, funding her financial illusion - one that did not put enough funds away for maintaining the Mississauga in the long term. No TAX increases! No new TAXES! TAX breaks (for the rich)! All are just leading GREEDY & FOOLISH like cattle to the slaughter. Sadly they are dragging us along with them. Short term gains - long term loses Most politicians have the common sense to get out while the going is good and things are still working as they should, politicians are also gamblers. Any gambler will tell you that if you stay at the gambling table too long, you will loss everything and for a politician it means all the problems that were swept under the rug, come to light and they sink - while they are still in office and a chance they could be held accountable for their past sins. Hazel McCallion has had the support of the Mississauga News in not having the facts about politics in Mississauga being published, so Mississaugans think they have been living in a magical kingdom and unprepared for the level of financial incompetence they will have to deal with. Especially from a lady who claimed to be running the City of Mississauga as a business. Well many business people will drive their company into bankruptcy and still make a personal profit - wonder if that is what Hazel has in mind? Still what is most disappointing, is that the local media - the Mississauga (Missing) News - has started to report this like no one saw it coming before. As the Mississauga (Missing) News does not do in-depth reporting about City Hall matters, we have been kept in the dark for far too long, now it will cost us billions. The bottom line is that Hazel McCallion was so greedy regarding her political legend, she put the whole City of Mississauga in financial & physically at risk. Remember urban sprawl kills, harms our health and rips the lungs out of children. The Mississauga News - June 26, 2005 - By John Stewart Fix up will cost big bucks Big decisions needed now Mississauga needs to spend more than $1 billion to rebuild its infrastructure over the next decade and it's going drive up your taxes no matter how the bill gets paid. The City recently assessed what it will cost to replace $5.8 billion worth of roads, bridges, buildings, sewers and for major equipment like fire trucks over the next 30 years. The analysis shows there's a significant gap between the funds the City has set aside for the jobs and the expected cost, Director of Finance Rob Rossini told city council Wednesday. [1] Rossini laid out two scenarios for dealing with the issue. In the first, the City spends all of its reserve funds to finance the work, including most of a $327 million fund it established when Hydro Mississauga was turned into a private company. Then, the City borrows the rest of the funds. That scenario would see taxes rise by one to 1.5 per cent annually to repay the debentures, beginning around 2010. The second scenario would see the City spend all of its reserves except the hydro fund. Then, "we would become our own banker," borrowing money from the hydro fund. "Unfortunately, that option results in tax increases that are (slightly) higher and are required almost immediately, in 2006," Rossini said. [3] Mayor Hazel McCallion said the City is "already in a very special situation" with no debt and "we want to make sure we're not flying by the seat of our pants," in future financial planning. "We're trying to make decisions now for others who will follow, so they won't be faced with a (difficult financial) situation," the mayor said. [4] [FURTHER COMMENTS BY DON B. - [1] - I would be willing to bet the farm that Director of Finance Rob Rossini estimates for the City's financial future do not include the grand loss of our current economy due to the loss of cheap oil. This would make it next to impossible to pay for the upgrades to the infrastructure. [2] - Boy are they off! These figures say they were only about haft right in their estimates and likely they are even more off. [3] - They start out saying small tax increases, how long before they use the word BIG. [4] - What a sick joke this is. Hazel McCallion is truly a one trick pony, stating that Mississauga has "no debt", therefore; we are superior financial planners & administers, whenever the City's finances are brought up and we are to just believe that is the answer to all questions & concerns. Well not any more - sound bits will not work when reality bites harder. The Mayor goes on to say - "we want to make sure we're not flying by the seat of our pants," in future financial planning", this sounds like she is clue less about the current problem and that it somehow sudden appear out of nowhere catching them all off guard. How could that be? Is this not Hazel McCallion's plan? Has it not been Hazel who has been the Mayor for the 25 or so years and the City budgets were her way and no tax increases till the past couple years? Is it not her finance planning that has got us into this current BILLION DOLLAR problem? Yes it is - but how many people will have the guts to stand up to the little old lady and tell her this is her fault! "We're trying to make decisions now for others who will follow, so they won't be faced with a (difficult financial) situation," - so say the Mayor, those who follow the Queen of Sprawl are doomed from the outset, we now know that for sure. ] |
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