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 Flin Flon City Council has discussed the possibility of annexing cottage subdivisions outside community limits, a bold move that could greatly bolster municipal coffers. While no firm decisions have been made, Mayor George Fontaine announced last week that annexation is an option council has contemplated. 'We've talked annexation for certain parts of the territory,' he said. 'And if need be, we're prepared to go there.' But Fontaine was quick to add that he would 'rather have conversations' with lake area residents 'and have some input from them before we actually decide where we're going.' In terms of potential annexation, Fontaine said council has 'looked at everything that's outside of Flin Flon that's inside of Manitoba that's north of Cranberry (Portage).' Annexation would involve a lengthy process, with the provincial minister of local government ultimately having the final say on any takeover of land. See 'Cotta...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 Surprisingly, the city would have no legal requirement to provide newly annexed areas with services such as garbage pick-up or snow removal, though would likely consider such measures as a matter of fairness. Some area residents who live year-round at a cottage are under the impression that the fees they pay to higher levels of government are given to the city. But 'that's a false impression,' Fontaine said, 'so we want to make the impression clear to them where the money is going, what money we're getting.' But annexation is not the only method of raising revenues council has considered. Fontaine said user fees for non-residents using public services are another option, but again he wants to discuss such matters with those who would be impacted. 'It's a question of how they want to react to the problem we have,' he said, referring to rising costs. Fontaine said council will also look at ways to more evenly spread the tax burden among homeowners within city limits. Nearly a quarter of homeowners in Flin Flon _ those whose properties have the lowest market values _ pay property taxes in the range of $300 a year. Residents with higher-end homes, meanwhile, pay in the thousands of dollars. 'We may have to look at a system where we take some services and charge (owners of low-end homes) a service charge rather than a tax, things like fire and police would be an example,' Fontaine said. Not pay more Under such a scenario, the mayor said, owners of low-end homes would not pay more for those services than residents with high-end homes. 'They'd just start paying something, because right now there's just nothing coming,' he said. 'There's not enough coming from those homes to be paying for services that they use. If we divide the population that we have and you take just fire and police on a per-capita basis right now, that's (roughly) $300 per person. So if we're looking at that, any home that has more than one person in it is already using far more than what they're paying in when they're at that lower range (of taxes).' Fontaine said the market value _ and thus property taxes _ have continually increased for owners of high-end homes, while low-end homes have stayed stagnant. 'Assessments aren't bringing them up to pay a (larger) share,' he said. 'Assessments are leaving them where they are while charging more and more on the (high-end homes), and that's not a viable situation.' Even though the city is holding the line on its property tax rate this year, Fontaine said some homeowners will see larger bills because their assessments increased. He said there is already 'enough of a burden on that particular level of taxpayer and it's time to start looking at some of the problems we have as a community and to treat them as community problems and to charge them out as community problems.' 'Different kind' Speaking at the unveiling of the city's 2012 budget at City Hall, Fontaine braced the public for 'a different kind of a budget next year.' 'I'm trying to warn people that we're looking at this and that we're going to be looking for input from the general public,' he said. 'And the input we're going to be looking for is, we're going to try to educate them (on) the way our costs are coming in and have them try to give us some input as to where they think they should fit into this puzzle.'
