Letter to the editor

About 10 days ago I sent this letter to the Invermere mayor, consulates and various district staff members. Nobody takes the time to answer or at least acknowledge my letter. So I decided to post it here too. It raises a valid concern.

I am writing to you to express my concerns about the letter I received regarding the decision the District of Invermere (DOI) made about curbside organic collection.

I was unpleasantly surprised that this will increase our already high taxes with $138 a year when at the same time this will reduce garbage collection to biweekly. So I reached out to Amy Fletcher, environmental planner for the DOI for better understanding how DOI made this decision and if the community was involved in any way. In her emails back to me Amy explained that a survey was conducted and 75 per cent of people taking this survey agree to this service.

But my surprise got even bigger when I was informed by Amy that only 186 people filled out the survey in question.

According to Statistics Canada in 2021 Invermere had 3917 residents. Let’s say a family dwelling consists of an average of three people. That makes about 1,305 households that your decision will impact. And you have only 139 people that approve that, with some of them expressing all kinds of concerns? That is about 10 per cent of Invermere households, but you went ahead and approved it anyway.

Doesn’t the DOI think that for decisions that involve tax increases or big amounts of taxpayers dollars being spent it needs at least 50-plus per cent of residents to agree? 

Looks to me that posting advertising for the survey on Facebook and the local newspaper is not enough. Maybe in cases like that the DOI should consider a local referendum or a letter sent to all households explaining the exact amount of tax increase and why. There is no problem mailing every residence their utility bill.

Obvious conclusion is that the DOI found another easy way to increase taxes without providing any additional service for this money. This is not acceptable! If that is the way the DOI conducts its business we all should be very worried,

Tatyana Deimling, Invermere