Penticton council’s decision to incrementally decrease the property tax exemption by 30 per cent by 2012 for selected non-profit groups is indefensible. The benchmark of “$50,000 available working capital” ignores numerous and valuable community contributions by many of the groups involved. Surprisingly, others will retain or even improve their tax exempt status by not having met the working capital “success” criteria, even in the absence of broad community programs. Where’s the fairness in that?

It is disappointing that the Penticton Art Gallery organization and others will be penalized because through hard work they have got themselves out of debt and have built “working capital.”  In a non-profit society, “working capital” is what enables these groups to deliver community programming and pay bills when grants and donations are periodically down.

Coun. Mike Pearce is entirely incorrect in his assertion that the amount being charged will be “marginal.” The responsibility of additional fundraising to pay this new “land tax”, (approximately $16,000 by the year 2012 for the art gallery), will be a deterrent to non-profit board recruitment in Penticton. As a long-term, front-line volunteer fundraiser, I know that donors give to support programming and operations; they will not so willingly donate to pay land taxes that are exempted in most municipalities.

I appreciate the concern of city staff that “Joe Public” will pay for community group land taxes one way or another. However, there was no concern for Joe Public when taxpayers were asked to forgive outstanding lease payments from the Chamber of Commerce at the former Wine Centre building, were asked to subsidize Vees tickets and the Okanagan Hockey School (the latter through reduced rent at SOEC), and were also required to pay for 50 per cent of the industrial area upgrades. Each of these situations represented a direct subsidy to business by taxpayers. As a member of Joe Public, I challenge Mayor Ashton, and councilors Vassilaki, Pearce and Jakubeit, who supported this bylaw, to name even one non-profit group that serves the general community that can afford to include this new tax levy in its budget.

The whole city loses when some councilors rely on clichés rather than doing their homework on issues. “Times are tough” is starting to sound like a thin excuse for ill-considered policy analysis in Penticton. While other communities in the Okanagan report signs of economic recovery, Penticton’s proposed permissive tax exemption bylaw sends the message that our city is desperate, and that its broader economic and fiscal plans have failed its citizens.

Loraine Stephanson

Penticton