“Peary said the paid parking is just one in a series of difficult decisions the city was forced to make, in order to stop the tax increase drifting beyond 5.5 per cent.”

Once again I find myself calling upon any of my fellow Abbotsford citizens who have a spare dictionary to deliver the dictionary to Mayor George Peary as his statement demonstrates the continued need for a dictionary at City Hall.

From the dictionary – tax: a sum of money demanded by a government for its support.

Nowhere in the definition is a tax defined in terms of what a government labels a tax nor is tax defined in terms whereby it is only a tax if government calls it a tax. The definition makes clear that government itself does not get to decide what it wants to call a tax or not a tax..

A tax is any sum of money demanded by a government for its support.

It does not matter if City Hall wants to mislead by using the euphemism “parking fees” or not. It is money they are demanding to support City Hall’s spendthrift ways and thus a tax.

Council apparently lacked the courage to admit to their spendthrift ways by openly raising taxes to the level necessary to pay for their tax and spend ways. Instead City Hall seeks to hide the actual level of tax increases by mislabelling taxes using euphemisms such as “parking fees”.

I have a suggestion. Why do we not add up the mayor + city councillors + city managers and divide the $50,000 by the total we got from our addition. We then charge each of the persons included in the total that amount as a “city hall parking fee”. Not only would this let them experience first hand the pain so many citizens are experiencing; it seems only fair in light of the fact that it was the actions of this group that led to the City’s current financial state.

It might also serve as a vivid reminder that a tax is any sum of money demanded by a government for its support.

Sigh. We may have changed Georges, but we still have the same lack of financially responsibility at City Hall.