The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Cottage owners have balked at a City of Flin Flon proposal that would see each year-round cottager pay nearly $900 a year into municipal coffers rather than face potential annexation. In a letter to cottage associations last November, Mayor George Fontaine suggested an annual 'service fee' of $882 for the owner of each permanent residence at the Manitoba cottage subdivisions near Flin Flon. He further suggested each seasonal cottager _ those who do not live at their cabin year-round _ pay only $126 a year to the city to cover fire protection expenses. 'Flin Flon and the cottage areas are inextricably linked,' Mayor Fontaine wrote in his letter to the the Schist Lake / Big Island and Little Athapap cottage owners associations, which was made public this week. 'No one wants to see the many regional services now provided by Flin Flon close down, but only a combined effort can make them sustainable over the long term.' Mayor Fontaine laid out the case for the fee, arguing that cottagers, who pay no taxes to Flin Flon, use city recreation, recycling, library, administration, policing and fire protection services as well as cemeteries. But in their response this week, the cottage association presidents, Mark Watling and Ian Mckay, shared little common ground with the city except when it comes to fire protection. 'Our general impression is that, except for fire protection for which we both agree a better arrangement is necessary, you have included all those items that would reduce your costs coupled with an open-ended allowance for increases,' they wrote in a joint letter, 'and excluded those items which would be a substantial cost such as road maintenance and snow removal, garbage collection, sewage pump-outs, etc.' Watling and Mckay called it 'disconcerting' that the proposed fee for year-round cottagers is more than twice the property tax paid by over a quarter of Flin Flon residents who receive full services. 'Your proposal reinforces our position that except for a reasonable cost structure to address the level of fire protection you are able to supply the cottage areas,' they wrote, 'and a realistic (perhaps substantial) user fee schedule for recreational facilities to be applicable to all non-residents of Flin Flon, your proposal continues to be an attempt to increase your revenue without providing any meaningful additional services to us.' See 'Mayor...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 That has prompted Mayor Fontaine to write another letter to the cottage associations, which was to be mailed this week. Mentioning the associations' openness to a fire protection agreement and recreation fees, he said he was 'encouraged' by the language of the cottagers' letter. Mayor Fontaine said the city is prepared to look at providing 'some additional services' to cottagers and would soon be making a 'concrete proposal' on fire protection as other issues are discussed. Mayor Fontaine and council approached cottagers last year about providing the city a voluntary, annual fee. Unless the two sides can agree upon a figure, council has pledged to attempt to annex the cottage subdivisions, making them a taxable part of Flin Flon. The provincial government would have the final say on annexation. The Reminder has obtained from the city and the cottage associations the letters outlining their respective positions. Given the complexities of the arguments, we are printing in full the city's letter from last November, the cottagers' response and the city's response to the cottagers. *** Mayor Fontaine's Nov. 29, 2012 letter: Thank you for the above noted reply. Further to (your letter) of August 24, which invites the City to make a proposal in this respect, the principle purpose of this letter is to set out a basis for a regional service fee and to suggest an amount. In the circumstances the City proposed, based on 2011 costs, (a) a service fee of $882.22 to be paid by the owner of any permanent residence or business property, in recognition of all the municipal services described below; and (b) where residential properties are not principle residences, only a fire service fee of $125.87. Business properties are included in the '(a)' group, because they are in exactly the same position as Flin Flon businesses, that is, while they might not directly benefit from consumer services such as recreation, they benefit from a local workforce and client base that does. The following identifies the components of the charges for (a) and (b) groups one by one: 1. Fire Protection - The overall cost of fire services in 2011 was $424,302.00. Recently, a proposal for billing out the cost of fire services on a per lot basis within Flin Flon was made, and it amounted to $142.81 per lot. When adding 400 cabin lots to the mix still sharing costs equally per lot, the cost goes down to $125.87. Accordingly, this is the amount which has been included in the total payable by the '(a)' group described above, which is responsible for the $882.22 fee. It has also been used as the sole amount payable by the '(b)' group. There was some suggestion in the letter that the cabin owners already pay for fire services, in that a fee is paid (usually by the insurer) when a fire call is made. The fire call fee is usually capped by the insurer (at $3000), however, and this often does not cover the same day operating costs to the City of responding to a call. Moreover, same day costs are only a fraction of the total cost of running the fire department, since men must be trained, equipment must be purchased and stored, and facilities for storage and training must be built and maintained. There was some suggestion that the cabin owners already make some contributions towards other costs, because a contribution of equipment was recently made. A contribution was in fact made by the Province of Manitoba, for equipment valued at $11,000, in 2004. Even if the money to pay for same had come solely from the cottage owner (which may not in fact be the case, given that all Manitoba residents contribute to the Province), the 2001 contribution would seem to have been a one-time contribution, amounting to perhaps one fortieth of the cost of a single fire truck. Although welcome, it can only be viewed as a very token contribution, after decades of service from the Flin Flon Fire Department, with the City covering virtually all of the capital and overhead costs over that long period. 2. Recreation - Yearly recreation operating costs, if calculated in the same way as fire services, would cost each member of the '(a)' group $374.96 (this is based in this case upon division of the 2011 recreation deficit, that being the amount contributed by Flin Flon after recreation revenues are subtracted). It has been suggested that recreation services could be paid for by cabin dwellers by adopting a more rigorous user-pay approach. This is not practical. Actual usership of recreation facilities varies from month to month, season to season, and year to year, but the cost of having the facilities constructed, maintained and staffed and available for use on an ongoing basis is constant and only grows over time. In a word, it is the same problem as represented by the fire department, in that a fair contribution must take into account the whole picture, not just the same day costs. There has been a suggestion that the cottage areas are merely doing the same thing as Creighton and Denare (B)each, by sharing in regional facilities. This is not entirely fair, since Creighton and Denare Beach have created and maintain regional recreation infrastructure which can be shared with and used by Flin Flon residents and taxpayers. This sense of reciprocity is not mirrored in the case of the cottage areas. In virtually all relevant cases, cottage area infrastructure is privately developed and privately used. (Where) public facilities exist, these are paid for by the Province of Manitoba through the parks system. Residents of the City of Flin Flon contribute to the general Provincial budget just as cottage area residents do, and it is consequently not appropriate to describe such works as being offered in return to Flin Flon by the cottage areas alone. The same comment can be made with respect to use of the lakes and watercourses, and crown land. 3. Cemeteries - Divided in the same manner as fire and recreation, the per cabin cost of cemetery services for each '(a)' group member would be $14.94. The cottage areas rely on municipal governments, overwhelmingly Flin Flon, to provide for cemetery services. 4. Recycling centre - Applying the same methodology to recycling costs, the per cabin cost for '(a)' group members would be $17.24. The recycling centre is a truly regional entity, which other municipalities contribute to, but the cabin areas have not. 5. Library - Using the same methodology, the per cabin cost for each '(a)' group member would be $27.51. Again, this is a truly regional service, to which the other municipalities contribute but the cabins do not. Again, library fees do not begin to address overall overhead, and cannot reasonably be expected to. 6. Police - In theory, police service for the cabin areas is being covered out of Cranberry Portage. In fact, our information is that 2 out of 3 calls in the Cottage / Cranberry area are being responded to from the Flin Flon detachment. If one divides up police costs to Flin Flon using the same methodology as above, then apply a proportion of 2/3 to this number, an appropriate fee for police services provided by Flin Flon for each '(a)' group member would be $256.99. 7. Administration costs - overall office administration costs (City Hall) amount to 8% of total expenses. Applying the same proportion to the total of the costs in paragraphs one to six, above, one gets a further charge of $65.71, which would be payable by '(a)' group members. Recapping the comment made at the outset, the total of the charges in paragraphs (1) to (7) for '(a)' group members is $882.22. This is without yet attempting to make allowance for other possible elements, such as maintenance costs on City roads, which are also frequently used by regional residents for all sorts of purposes (often just as much and just as widely as though they were residents themselves), significant (though not universal) use of City potable water and wastewater utilities by utility service providers for the cabin areas, and significant though not universal use of the City's landfill. No specific allowance has been made for either the (a) or the (b) group in respect of fees to fund operations at the Flin Flon Municipal Airport, at Baker's Narrows, either, at this time. This is not based on any weakness in the argument that the airport represents a regional service which benefits everyone (as much in the case of commercial and consumer use as for health related transport) but rather reflects the fact that in 2011, the Airport broke even, or very nearly so, on its yearly operation costs as opposed to revenues. However, no major capital costs were incurred in 2011. This will not go on forever, as major capital expenses are inevitable at some point in the future, most notably in terms of repairs and renovations to the terminal building. Because not all factors affecting airport revenues are directly within the City's control, a future operational deficit also remains possible, even if unlikely in the short term. See 'Allow...' on pg. 10
