Taken from a local newspaper, date unknown (sometime in 2006).

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"$75 Not Much For Some, But Big Dough For Others"


We don't all live in spanky new hillside houses and look down through our rose-coloured bay window at the peasants below.

Hugh Cairns asked in his letter to the editor Wednesday: How much is $75 (the expected tax increase related to the new pool project)?

He then goes on to answer in a number of ways only those with apparently too many dollars their disposal would dare to do.

"A tank of gas once a year." Well, to some of the folk down here in the real world who are already struggling to keep a roof over our heads, that $75 could mean having enough gas in the car to get to the grocery store a couple of times a week, or to buy two months worth of transit passes to get to and from work.

"Dinner for four." How about two or three month's worth of milk and bread for a small family? Or having the electricity stay turned on and the telephone connected?

"A pair of running shoes once a year." How about being able to send a child to school in decent shoes or proper winter boots rather than in worn-out sneakers and hand-me-downs?

"A pair of jeans."

How about buying something -anything- to put under the tree at Christmas rather than having to swallow whatever little pride is left just long enough to ask the food bank for "gifts" from their already-diminished shelves?

We'd all like to be able to afford Cairns' "good causes", but quite frankly, we'd rather be allowed to choose our own - and building yet another cholorinated pool just so you and your friends don't have to drive your SUVs an extra mile or two once or twice a month doesn't rank high on our list.

There is a very good chance that once this unspeakably undemocratic tithe has been paid, some of the folk you're asking to entertain your visitors will not have enough money left over to even get to the new facility, let alone pay the entrance fees to use it.

How's that for a better quality of life?

Here's another perspective for you:

How about every year -from now until forever- I have absolutel permission to come to your house and take $75 worth of whatever I can find, and the only way you will ever have any right to stop me is if you can get 8,200 neighbours to sign a petition telling me to cease and desist?

Oh, and if you don't come up with those signatures in the two months prior to my first raid, you will forever have to suck it up and hold the door open for me.

We did not knowingly elect anyone who would so easily buckle under the whims and fancies of a very limited bunch of swimmers who don't like having to make a turn every 25 metres.

In fact, as I and many others recall, there are four council members who were quite definite in their pre-electino promises and pronouncements about how they would not allow any more frivolous taxation and heedless spending - but who have since flipped face.

If Cairns wants a pool so bad, he should show me his money.

In fact, how about he steps up and pays the $75 tariff for all minimum-wage-earning homeowners in Kelowna. Shouldn't be a problem, right?

After all, I'm sure he can find 8,200 friends to help him raise the cash.

Just don't for a minute think he has permission to spend mine.


- R.S. Thompson,