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Originally Posted by Flamenspiel
Lots of back and forth talk about taxes and the fact that they are beginning to approach tax levels in other municipalities.
If taxes was your main concern, which candidates are supporting lower taxes? Secondly what has Nenshi done to keep taxes low, if anything?
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Our current city council increased developer levies, which means that the portion of the infrastructure that is paid for with taxes is decreased. In the long run, this also incentivises a more sustainable city form, which should further decrease taxes (or avoid an increase). Nenshi (and Farrell, I think) voted against the deal with developers, but they did so because it did not go far enough to shift the costs of development towards the developers and away from the general taxpayer.
I'm not going to name names, but if you're primarily concerned about taxes the best question to ask your candidates is whether or not they'll vote to increase developer levies (by at least $7K/house average) when the current fee structure expires. If they won't say yes, then it doesn't matter what else they say about taxes, because they're putting the developers' interests ahead of yours.