Dear Editor,

Are millions of tax dollars wasted paying off City of Pitt Meadows loans and careless spending? Is this why taxes keep increasing?

Taxes pay some services and infrastructure within and outside the City, but how efficient are taxes managed and spent by council and bureaucrats?

Their wages increased 10 to 12 per cent annually.

Cellphones, computers, meals, travel, lodging, and a tax-free allowance are provided.

The mayor is paid $346 - double over four hours - for other meetings. Would a 10 to 20 per cent rollback be justified?

Are all assistant directors needed? Pitt Meadows, with a population of 18,000, is a city in name only.

Do politicians beg to get elected and do bureaucrats want to serve the taxpayers? Or themselves?

Why does the City permit placement of culverts that create a major drain-age problem? Common sense would insist the contractor return lower culverts, placing them around a corrosive, protected Metro sewer pipe, in the same location, and not attempt a quick fix with a million-dollar aqua area.

Plans are now to extend it 1,200 feet west. Enlarging the original Katzie Slough (natural habitat) as the drainage reservoir (aqua area) would have saved free agricultural land to grow vegetables for local hospitals, (same as in the U.S.A.) and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But a logical decision was lower culverts.

Should council rubberstamp bureaucrats' out-of-control spending, without questioning job qualifications or management skills?

Would hiring a professional engineer as director of operations save thousands in consultant fees, duplication, unnecessary meetings, overtime, and most important, continual property tax increases?

Ken Joyner, Pitt Meadows