The South Side of Colborne Street

So a developer has bought all of the buildings on the south side of Colborne St. I wonder how many millions this will cost the city taxpayers?

Brantford and London

London, Ontario - "The Forest City"

Brantford, Ontario - "The Deforested City"

Mohawk Park

What were they thinking? Or just not thinking? Some of those blockheads at the Brantford Parks Board should surely roll.

I was at the park in the last several days and it is pathetic. A large number of trees have been stripped of most of their leaves. A few have started to sprout some new ones but a number look like they will never recover. On top of the drought conditions of the last several years this may be a fatal blow to many magnificant trees. Instead of the cool shady oasis that this park normally is , now it is sunny and hot. And filled with thousands and thousands and thousands of moths. There are a number of pheromone traps set up but I watched one for awhile and only a few months went in. They are a totally ineffective way to solve the problem. The same condition will most likely exist next year as well and could easily spread to other parts of Brantford as the moths are not confined to the park. Let's hope that saner heads prevail next year and the park is sprayed in the spring before it is too late. There are environmently friendly sprays available that are not toxic to people, animals or the general environment. Marguerite Ceschi-Smith please take note.

It is a disgrace to see what has happened to this once great park. It didn't need to end up like this. The Brantford Parks Board and the Brantford City Council should be ashamed. Very ashamed.

More Water Use Reductions

Brantford residents are being urged to reduce their water useage because the flow in the Grand River is under 70% of its normal summer flow. While this seems sensible, I still can't figure out how the city was going to provide the proposed (now defunct) Ethanol plant in Cainsville with those 450,000 gallons per day of water and is still going to provide that area (and the developer) with municipal water even though it will still be outside of the expanded city bounderies after the latest annexation takes place. And won't the area that will be annexed require municipal water services further straining the Grand's flow? But then developers always come first in Brantford even if it means that the average taxpayer may be reduced to flushing their toilet only once per day.

Brantford Municipal Taxes

I see that The Expositor is going to have a new series that addresses questions about Brantford and will attempt to verify if they are fact or myth. One of the examples used is whether Brantford has the highest municipal taxes in Ontario. Well I can tell you this is no myth. Brantford's municipal taxes may not be the absolute highest but they are right up there near the top.

It is hard to make direct comparisons because identical houses in other cities have different assessments but if you look for a comparable property in another city even if it has a much higher assessment you will find that its municipal taxes are much lower. This is true for such cities as Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener.

Even in the surrounding County of Brant taxes on average are a whopping 50% less than for a comparable house in the city. This is why properties in the proposed annexation area will have a phase in period to get their taxes up to city levels. But all this does is place an even greater burden on current city taxpayers because the new areas will have to be provided with city services such as fire and police protection, snow clearing etc. but the extra costs will not be borne by those new residents but by the current ones. How fair is that?

It's time that the city got out of providing windfall bonuses to developers, making the municipal taxpayer pay for the university (a provincial responsibility) and pouring money into the downtown and actually thought about the onerous tax burden they are saddling their citizens with.