The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Waterloo residents face a 4.95% increase on city tax bill The increase is based on a taxrate target option Coun. Morty Taylor, the city's chair of finance and strategic planning. pro- posed just before the meet- ing. In his option, Taylor sug- gested the city phase in the additional support required to cover the cost of RIM Park and the public inquiry with operating budget increases of 3.10 per cent in aterloo residents Wwon'l bear as _ Much burden on their 2003 tax bills for RIM Park as some feared. City council approved an increase of 4.95 per cent for its annual operating budget Monday night. The approval means an increase of $31 for the average homeowner, 1mkiqurMktirarhreantu8l" BY Mom Bum Chronicle Staff tiiima4amtors.am m oti,' 2003 and 2.30 per cent in 2004. Other budget priorities include library expansion. increased provisions for road improvements, and a "I must also make sure that the budget is fiscally responsible. " Many Taylor chair oftinance new fire station on the east side of the city. The approved budget is lower than the two options proposed by the city's finance department. which included overall increases of either 6.63 per cent or 5.53 per cent, "While I have the desire to keep taxes as low as pos- sible, I must also make sure that the budget is fiscally responsible," Taylor told council. "It must allow us to deal with the additional support for RIM Park as well as the estimated inquiry costs. Téylor said he was con- vinced more could be done to trim the targets. "I believe (option) allows us to deal with the issues of funding the additional sup- port over two years and will also allow us to pay for the inquiry." Mayor Lynne Woolslen PAGE 3 croft said she wished more savings were possibly. "The circdmstandes that created the bulk of this tax increase anger me," she "The costs associated with the public inquiry have created tremendous pressure on the entire process. "At the same time, our rapidly-growing communi- ty asks that we maintain services and programs. " It is very sad that one of the spinoffs of RIM Park is that other things the citi- zens need will have to be examined in light of our new financial reality. "Some tough decisions have to be made and we must balance our dreams with the fiscal reality we now face" Council also approved a capital budget of close to $22.5 million. A coalition of concerned students and citizens in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, held a peaceful and "on-confrontational vigil outside the Walper Ter- race Hotel in Kitchener Saturday. The vigil was in protest of an anti-Islamic conference that was scheduled to take place at the hotel at the same time. While the confer- ence was cancelled, the vigil went on, with or9a- nizer Ali Asaria (above) speaking to the crowd. United Against Hate AMMEA MY mom Regional Chairman Ken Seiling said the goal was to keep the increase under the cost of inflation while pro- viding money for expansion of 31 public services to meet the need ofa growing popu- lation in the region's three cities and four surrounding townships. th growth pres- W‘sures continuing, especially in areas like policing and transit. regional council approved a two-per-cent tax increase last week to come up with what it described as a tine balance. That two-per-cent in- crease will cost the average homeowner in Waterloo $22 a year on a home worth $163,000. The biggest bud- get increases came in the area of policing, reducing ambulance and paramedics' response time. and transit. Region _c_,i.'_w,r, approves 2%"'i-'i.,i',I' tax increase ",r-is':, "These three service areas in particular were ones where we felt we either had provincial government direction to do it or there was public pressure to do it," said Seiling There were also a num- ber of areas where the province forced the region to take up administrative costs for existing services like welfare. "We're still feeling the impact of a little bit of allo- cation of costs from the province." said Sailing. "We haven't been able to suc. cessfully tight them so we've had to absorb them as well." But all in all, Selling described the budget process as a "fine balance" between maintaining exist- ing services while expand- ing services like transit. "We did fine tune some of the budget, and actually took about $900,000 of the existing line budgets, in an effort to try to accommo- date some of these expan- 345 Em St. W 746-270 240 King St N 885-2170 207 King St s 744-1107 55 Norman Dr 885-3230 LaureNvood Plaza 886-9920 (,,2i),,i.iiiii.ij,li, By Boa VRMNAC Chron icle Staff sions as well," said Seiling. "We aren't just doing every- thing we did before; we also found some efficiencies in the system in addition to providing some of the ser- vices we've heard demands for in the budget process" Waterloo Regional (bun. Sean Strickland said he thought it was the best job regional council has done in balancing the competing interests of expanding ser- vices while controlling costs in his six years on regional council. "This is a good budget." said Strickland. "This is a budget where regional councillors really took a magnifying glass to the bud- get and established a bud- get that I think has a fair increase. Waterloo Regional Coun. lane Mitchell was also happy with the way that the budget balanced competing interests to control costs while funding the expan- sions of some services like transit. road maintenance and funding for more bike lanes. "Considering the growth in the region, I thought it was a very good budget." she said. "It's a fair increase below the rate of inflation and meets the growing needs of our community in areas across health care, environ- ment and the economy" If there was one thing Mitchell would like to see changed in time for next year's budget deliberations, it would be my public more of a say earlier in the process, H would like to have a day for the public to come in November or so to give their ideas about the bud. get." said Mitchell. "We sometimes have people come at the last minute with things we could have put in, but it's too late at that point. "To change it. they have to wait until next year" 135 Ottawa St, s 744-44tl 3101 Klnosway Dr 894-2070 Forest Glen Plaza 742-1641 460 Frederick M3-7511 450 Westmohts Dr 578-5940