Niagara

Winners Circle

Spring 2009

―To respectfully design and develop within the context of a heritage location is to immediately

enter into our heritage continuum‖ -M. Kirkland

opinion@wc-info.com Box 4063 St. Catharines On L2R 7S3 www.niagarawinnerscircle.com

Enhanced access to public beaches with no loss of public space!

City Wins its Heritage

New Tourist Destination!

Heritage Preserved !

Culture Wins 415 Seat Live Theatre!

A Safe Family Place!

$Millions in new property tax support based on existing private property!

Permanent Employment Opportunities!

Hundreds of jobs for Skilled Trades! $100Million in Private Investment!

BIA & Both Councillors agree; replace hidden garbage bins with garbage pick-up on our sidewalks!

Money does not come from heaven — it must be EARNED right here on earth!

Tax Transfer to the Poor

Our concern has to do with static taxes that

are being inequitably attached to water bills...

To attribute ANY static cost to water bills

is to tax uniformly between all taxpayers, who,

in this case, are forced to pay $180 in static

taxes to gain a sip of water, whether they are

living in modest homes-on fixed incomes, or

the mansions of the rich, like those in the

$100K ‗and over‘ club!

The Mayor and councillors, are elected to

look after all of our citizens!

While this scheme makes city property tax

levels look $Millions of dollars more palatable,

it still ‗and always will‘ smell like what it is...

and what it is, is an inequitable and immoral

transfer of over-taxation to the poor…

Not to mention one more small impediment

to Prosperity!

Impediments to Prosperity

Does our current wisdom fly in the face of

historic evidence?

What about the unintended consequences of

our current practice of overburdening wealth-

creating commerce with nearly, if not virtually,

every impediment ever devised?

What about the current practice of making

excuses instead of cleaning up the unnecessary

‗impediments of expedience and greed‘ that are,

so evidently, overwhelming the engine of our

economy!

Taken individually, these commerce killing

impediments are passed off as mere anecdotal

nuisances, but taken collectively they should,

advisedly, be considered as a systemic liability.

There is ample evidence that man-made

impediments to society‘s prosperity are

producing an exponential deterioration of our

commerce‘s ability to fund our economy. We

have spent decades piling on burdensome im-

pediments that deprive us of the most precious

attributes of entrepreneurial enterprises, which

are: time, energy and attention.

The consequence of diverting time, energy and

attention from the very entrepreneurial enter-

prises that so desperately need every minute to

apply all of its energy to imaginative attention,

now demanded in this highly competitive world,

is exactly what we are now witnessing.

Our government‘s attempt at reducing red tape

is the first small step toward recognizing the

crisis of impediments. Impediments have become

so deeply ingrained into our commerce that few

people identify with this critical issue.

Impediments that are sapping time, energy and

imaginative attention from our business commu-

nity, cannot and will not be replaced with any

amount of futile funding! Taxpayer funding is

proof of failure and indicates that commerce is in

reverse.

Feeble and failed attempts to buy prosperity are

just that… feeble!

An overabundance of so-called ‗not-for-profit‘

and semi-secret organizations articulate difficulty

in finding appropriate entrepreneurs to throw

money at!

We are floundering about like headless chick-

ens trying to entice new commerce, or to attract

business from elsewhere, to rashly wade into our

toxic pool of impediments to prosperity!

Historic evidence clearly indicates that if we

fail or refuse to eliminate, or at least greatly re-

duce, impediments to commerce, which is the

only engine that drives our economy to prosper-

ity, our ineffective peripheral attempts to grow

entrepreneurial enterprise will also fail.

To Serve & Protect

Our elected officials intimate that they

are facing a tax-abusing police depart-

ment. The NRP claims that they need one

HQ to cut their overhead!

Is that not the same story that the Re-

gional Government sold to us when they

wanted to double their headquarters?

Did the deep thinkers of the NRP

really demand new digs at 110 James

Street costing the taxpayer $10‘s of mil-

lions, only to demand $100‘s of millions

for a Taj of their own and to seek a non–

central location at the far eastern bound-

ary of Niagara.

Has the chairman of the Police Board

been busy threatening the already over-

burdened taxpayer, through our Regional

Government. Has the chairman and NRP

Chief really threatened to drag us through

an expensive Ontario Civil Police Board

which they say can force us into submis-

sion to pay any cost!

The NRP board now says they have

‗Federal Partners‘ that are waiting

‗Eagerly and impatiently‘ for a decision

on their new NRP headquarters. Perhaps

the federal big spenders would not be so

‗Eager and Impatient‘ if they were asked

to cough up money to help pay for it!

On the other hand, why have we not

heard our chiefs version of the story?

Why has our chief not publicly

appeared before our regional council on

this mater?

Does our current ‗perfect economic

storm‘ not dictate that we hear both sides

of this story?

Your opinion can be placed on NWC Blog

Original HQ

110 James

Congratulations to our Transportation Minister! Only 30 years to get from GO Walk to GO Bus!

The biggest problem with socialism is that pretty soon you run out of other people’s money!

*Source of Road Cost information:

http://www.niagararegion.ca/government/

budget-taxes/pdf/2008-municipal-tax-study.pdf

Highest Cost in

Southern Ontario

$ Explained as Accounting Difference

Survey after survey, Chart after Chart, Comparison after Comparison + Media

St. Catharines shows poorly

Value Survey of Canadian Cities CBC Real Estate Survey

March 18, 2009

In a survey of major centers across Canada,

the CBC National News included the real

estate plight of St. Catharines.

Does the dearth of buyers for such an over-

abundance of homes for sale indicate an exo-

dus of citizens or a shortage of people wanting

to move here?

Even with the great transition of business to

home occupation the number of homes for sale

is still increasing, while virtually all plazas and

malls have commercial vacancies.

Our main street, St. Paul St., now sits at a

record forty {42} vacant shops, with the rest of

downtown sporting an embarrassing excess of

‗for lease‘ signs. Unfortunately, some of the

new shops are not of the calibre of the shops

and stores that they have replaced.

The CBC pointed out that St. Catharines has

the second highest unemployment rate in

Canada!

Could it be that what is happening is that

people and business are voting with their feet.

Why would people want to do that? Are peo-

ple giving up on our regime. Are they looking

elsewhere for their future. Are they not aware

of the efforts of our regime to improve the

situation in St. Catharines?

Our Mayor set up a committee to investigate

reported conceptions that our city is NOT open

to business and prosperity.

The committee, assisted by all 8 city depart-

ment heads, found that public conceptions such

as disproportionately high property taxes, Ma-

chiavellian‘ impediments, misuse of taxes,

overuse of secrecy, desertion of civic services,

heavy handed application of regulations, a

commerce-killing bent, and any citizen abuse

they can apply in an effort to gain the funding

needed for their own budget busting benefit,

where merely misconceptions.

Enjoy the short read of the full ‗Open for Busi-

ness‘ Task Force Report, which can be found on our

web site or go directly to:

www.wc-info.com/openforbusinessWishList.html

Headlines Screem-

McGuinty defends Sunshine List!

Government:

Number of public sector workers paid

more than $100,000 jumps by 26 per cent!

Closer examination suggests that 53,572

of the public service salaries are well over the

$100,000 level with an over-abundance of

these in the ‗Quarter Million Club‘!

Of course, the government maintains that

this grand tax-burning cannibalism of our

society has nothing to do with driving Ontario

into a ‗have-not Province‘ receiving equaliza-

tion payments!

Predicated on Ontario‘s squandering of

public funds, Ontario will also be the benefi-

ciary of $347 million in equalization pay-

ments from the federal government this year

to help the province offer public services that

are comparable to other provinces in the fed-

eration.

The conduct of our elected mandarins is

causing private enterprise to vote with their

feet. Commerce that vote by escaping Ontario

are extremely difficult to repatriate!

List of Niagara Sunshine Members: Brock University………282 up to$341457.71

Niagara College……….37 up to $287,517.47

NHS……………….....168 up to $384,434.21

Nia Reg. Police………171 up to $235,662.22

DSBN………………..123 up to $205,749.02

Cath School Board……70 up to $174,328.15

Nia Reg Gov………….54 up to $225,750.17

St. Catharines………….17 up to $182,034.49

Nia Falls………….…....41 up to $180,083.06

Child/Youth Services………1 at $107,530.74

NEDCO…………………….1 at $171,999.18

Nia Pen Children‘s Ctr……..1 at $105,133.29

Nia Pen Conserv Auth ....2 up to $115,042.27

Average personal income… $33,000.00

Unsafe at any Speed

Our regime touts the enterprise that drains our treasury & impedes the enterprise that supplies it!

While you CAN spend your way to financial RUIN, you CANNOT buy prosperity!

Hear the Plea! Headlines scream out that poverty numbers

will rise without a funding boost!

Poverty numbers will rise to the levels of

poverty, with or without funding.

The only thing that additional funding can

accomplish is to alleviate the suffering of im-

poverishment at the expense of those that are

still hanging on!

There are two main factions in the sphere of

poverty—those in genuine need and those in

unfortunate want. Those in genuine need must

and will be protected. Those in unfortunate

want must receive a hand up not a hand out.

They need education, skills and the ability to

offer something in exchange for a livelihood.

If families, especially their children, need

assistance, they should be serviced through our

employment offices, with upgrading of their

skills as mandatory.

Inarticulate funding has an insidious down-

side. As evident in other societies, indiscrimi-

nate funding holds little more than a disastrous

potential of expanding the ‘bureaucracy of

poverty’

View as suspicious those who have only

succeeded in creating a debilitating and perma-

nent deprivation for our fellow citizens.

Make no mistake, the impoverishing of some

Canadians will not and cannot do anything

other than to add to the numbers in poverty!

Only prosperity can defeat poverty but pros-

perity is under artificial pressure from needless

impediments, problematic meddlers and the

minions of self-serving administrators...

ONTARIO ANNOUNCES DEFICIT Not just any old deficit ! Oh No! Our

deficit runs into award winning ‘Hundreds of Billions of Dollars!

Shouldn’t we get a ‘Nobel Prize’ or something?

Would someone please tell our big spend-ers that we cannot buy prosperity any more than we can borrow our way out of debt!

ONTARIO ANNOUNCES TAX GRAB

The same big spenders, which have put Ontario so deep in debt, are now re-sorting to Bait & Switch, Bribery, and De-ceit to push through their shameless tax grab under their deceptive assertion that blending sales taxes is good for export!

Being good for exports does not preclude formulating the new single sales tax to be revenue neutral!

Just another tax-grab!

Mayor and Council out of Touch By Andrew Petrowski

A review of the latest numbers from Stats

Can may explain why it seems that the major-

ity of those on council, including Mayor

McMullan, who are making a living in the gov-

ernment sector off the taxpayer have little re-

gard for the citizen (only 2 councillors voted

for a tax freeze) while projected city spending

will soar by more than $5 million more over

last year.

Not only does our beloved Garden City

have the second highest unemployment rate

and property taxes in the country, now we

learn that St. Catharines is the worst city in the

country for the largest gap in wages and bene-

fits between the municipal government versus

the hard working folk in the private sector.

When will it stop? Taxpayers now realize

we are on the hook for more than $2 million

for just seventeen city hall employees in the

$100,000 plus "Sunshine" club.

It gets worse. Budget time 2009 with no

debate Mayor McMullan and council voted to

delay putting the unemployed back to work

immediately by withholding $6.5 million in

provincial infrastructure money in its bank

account waiting indefinitely to erect another

legacy project the taxpayer can hardly afford to

build much less run in these hard times. Mayor

McMullan and council don‘t seem to get it.

Arts have the ability to wait—Suffering citi-

zens cannot! The government of "haves" are

ignoring the "have-nots".

Is a tax revolt brewing?

Your opinion can be placed on NWC Blog