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 Mayor George Fontaine stresses city council's efforts to secure funding from outlying residents are not part of a 'blame game.' Instead, he told the Chamber of Commerce last week, it's about reaching out to 'the entire community' to help pay for Flin Flon-based services that are used regionally. 'This isn't a blame game we're looking at right now,' Mayor Fontaine said. 'We're just looking at a situation.' Part of that 'situation,' he said, is that Flin Flon taxpayers spend about $1 million a year to subsidize recreation even though those programs are used many non-residents. Mayor Fontaine said it boils down to a question of cutting services, which he wants to avoid, or approaching 'the people, the entire community, and say(ing), 'Hey, what part of this can you take (on)?'' He said he is not 'aiming' at 'any one group,' adding that it's unfortunate how some of the resulting dialogue 'has gotten negative.' Mayor Fontaine said he views the Flin Flon region as one community _ and 'some of the best citizens we have in this community don't actually live in Flin Flon.' While cottagers have been approached to help fund city operations, Mayor Fontaine said Creighton and Denare Beach have also been asked to help. To continue having Flin Flon taxpayers pay for services used by an entire region is 'unsustainable,' he told the chamber at their Feb. 26 meeting. But some question whether the mayor has the right approach in mind to solve the problem. If the city wants non-residents to help fund municipal services, one common argument goes, why not charge them a higher user fee when they visit facilities like the Aqua Centre or Whitney Forum? Mayor Fontaine in turn argued 'user fees done as communities make more sense because the facilities are there for the entire community.' See 'User...' on pg. 10 Continued from pg. 1 But he did not entirely rule out individual user fees if other proposals fail. 'If there's (individual user) fees, you know, we might have to do it just as a matter of principle even if we don't make money on it, just to get the point across,' Mayor Fontaine said. 'It might cost us $6 to charge $5 at some point because usually fees done individually are not very efficient.' Added the mayor: 'If we have to, though, go (to) individual user fees, I guess that's the path we're going to end up taking.' Even though city council has asked Creighton and Denare Beach to provide funding, much of the public attention has been focused on their correspondence with area cottage associations. Asked whether council's desired funding from cottagers would bridge the city's budgetary gap, Mayor Fontaine said it would be 'one piece of a lot of pieces that need to be changed.'
