Dear Editor:
Is your child one of the 70 still going to Ross R. Mackay Public School who will have to leave and get bused to another school further away? Or perhaps your mother and father have just found it too hard to keep up with the shovelling this winter, and can’t find a place to live in this community that doesn’t require a lot of physical labour? Did it occur to you suddenly that your adult children had to move far away from here in order to find a place to live at a reasonable price?
Or on a more personal level, have you been complaining about how high your water rates are? Perhaps you are a small business owner that has been blindsided by the COVID-19 pandemic which is going to push you over the edge into bankruptcy? Do you run a small service-type business in the town and are struggling to find enough clients to stay in business?
These are all very real problems that many people in this community have been experiencing. Every four years we elect a council, and we charge them with trying to find answers to the problems that face our community.
And every council for the last 20 years has tried to deal with these issues. They all keep coming back to the same solution: we need more people living in Erin. We need more housing that is affordable for young people with families. We need housing that can adapt to the changing needs of our seniors. We need a stronger commercial and industrial tax base to reduce the burden on the residential taxpayer.
To provide for more options in housing, we need to reduce the amount of land for, and therefore the cost of, housing. To slow the relentless pace of tax increases, we need more industrial and commercial businesses. Not only do they pay tax at twice the rate of residential properties, but they also provide employment so that you do not have to spend 780 hours a year just going to and returning from your job in the city.
The key to finding the solution to these problems is proper infrastructure that can provide water and sewer services in an efficient manner. We need a sewage treatment plant to keep this town a great place to live.
Oh, and by the way, the trout will actually enjoy having a stream to live in that doesn’t dry up in summer.
Rod Finnie,
Erin