I just read Ed Grant’s letter in the Jan . 12 Weekend Telegram (“LETTER: Is it really about the bag of garbage at the Cabin?”) and felt that I had to respond.
It is about much more. Double taxation for one.
My wife and I generate about two bags of garbage a week, most weeks one bag (we recycle everything) and we pay the city of Mount Pearl about $2,700 (along with water taxes, property taxes, etc.) for this garbage.
When I am at the cabin, I don’t generate garbage in Mount Pearl. Still 1-2 bags total.
In his letter, Grant suggests that services such as snow clearing and road maintenance are paid out of the public purse.
(At the cabin) We have a committee set up and pay a local contractor for these services, thereby generating business for this contractor. The vast number of cabin owners are in this situation and for you to imply otherwise is misleading the public and completely irresponsible. Shame on you Mr. Grant.
It is $180 now, but for how long? ERSB will certainly increase this as the soon as this issue calms down, in spite of the surplus that is being generated.
We all know that the province has a spending problem as Grant mentioned in his letter, but he and his board only add to the problem. Could it not hold its monthly meetings in a government building instead of the various hotels in the city? There surely must be an available room somewhere.
Also, is there any need to send groups of board members on trips to places such Long Beach, Calif., Dallas, Texas, Orlando, Fla., West Palm Beach, Fla., and Indianapolis, Ind.?
These trips were only in three years, 2013-2016.
Who knows where 2017 and 2018 took them?
This info appears to be closely guarded now. The Robin Hood Bay site is greatly improved but do we still need to send groups of people to such sunny locals all in the name of educating us on how to handle our garbage?
Newfoundlanders are quite passionate about their cabins and some politicians and people who have been appointed to boards such as this fail to understand how we feel about our getaways from today’s pressures — from taxes, government interference, etc.
This, Mr. Grant, is more than about a bag of garbage but where we are headed with taking the common man out of a cabin.
Has it not been suggested at one of the board meetings by one of the board members that we put property tax on cabins and cottages?
Gary M. Finn,
Cabin owner and taxpayer
Mount Pearl
