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.
It may be a small fish to fry. Some of the arguments for it may be flimsy. And it may not be 100 per cent absolutely fair to every single person. But city council's plan to cap taxpayer-funded sewage tank pump-outs in Channing is a reasonable, albeit small, step toward greater fiscal prudence. Though nothing is final, council appears set to fund no more than one pump-out per home, per week starting in August of 2014. Tighter restrictions, such as one pump-out every 10 days, remain possible. The plan responds, in part, to the small number of Channing residents who apparently abuse the current all-you-can-pump system. At a public forum last week, Mayor George Fontaine said some people are getting two or three pump-outs a week, something he called 'not sensible.' 'Nobody here would do that on their own dime, ever,' he told a crowd of Channing residents. Mayor Fontaine is correct about that. And sensible people can agree that as long as it won't generate undue hardship, there should be some restriction on pump-outs. When a previous city council began funding Channing pump-outs a decade ago, no limits were established. Any home could get any number of pump-outs and the city would foot the bill. The city did monitor the system for signs of obvious abuse and, initially at least, found none. That has evidently changed. Yet there remain legitimate concerns about capping pump-outs. 'How would you feel if the city decided, 'let's put a meter on your toilet and once you get to a certain number (of flushes), then you're going to pay'?' longtime Channing resident Donna Law asked council at last week's forum. She had a point. Contrary to semi-popular belief, Channing is not separate from Flin Flon; it is as much a part of Flin Flon as Birchview or Willowvale. If Birchview folks can flush at will, why can't Channing folks? Also troubling is the argument that the city is 'subsidizing' Channing because tax revenue from the subdivision fails to cover its tab for pump-outs and water delivery. No even keel It's a fact of life that no form of taxation works on an even keel. Channing doesn't 'pay its own way,' to use blunt terminology, but it likely isn't the only Flin Flon subdivision or neighbourhood in that category. It's unrealistic to expect every single household to reimburse the city in full for all services rendered. The idea of taxation, indeed of community, is that we all throw our taxes into a big pot and go from there. If your neighbourhood needs new sewer lines out front, as is the case on Green Street, then the rest of us help out. It could be our house next time. And if your house is not hooked up to the city grid and relies on sewage pump-outs and water deliveries, as is the case in Channing, then the rest of us help out there, too. It is worth noting that Channing residents now thought to be abusing the pump-out system may just have a tiny sewage tank and little choice but to call in repeated pump-outs. The city plans to offer grants of $2,000 to help residents upgrade their tanks, but what if some of those people lack the financial means to cover the remainder of the installation bill? Council must discuss further how it would handle such a situation. Could rare exemptions to the pump-out limit be granted? Most Channing and Wally Heights residents do not abuse the current system. Some of the people thought to be abusing the system may not even be abusing it. But it is neither practical nor responsible to give any resident, no matter where they live, carte blanche to have the city billed when it is likely that some of those billings can be avoided. Restricting pump-outs will not save huge piles of money, as all pump-outs combined cost just $66,605 last year. But it will, in a small way, help the City of Flin Flon operate in a more efficient manner. And that has never been more important. Local Angle runs Fridays.
