Another year is drawing to a close.
It was a great year in many respects, the opening of the new Riverfront Park, continued business growth in the Quarry bringing many new shopping options to town, the redevelopment of the Old Town Hall site is well on its way and, of course, the continued construction on the new Aquatic and Curling Multi-Sport Rec Centre.
There are many more successes to 2015 that I could speak to.
However, to be fair, I should speak to the big disappointment. While we are having very good dialogue with our new provincial government, we still have no concrete plans for improvements to highways 1A and 22. I certainly understand that they needed some time to understand all the issues in our region, but enough is enough and my Christmas Wish to them is quite simply “get on with it.” This is not just a Cochrane issue but a regional one.
The end of 2015 is the halfway point in our current term on council, serving as your mayor is a real honour for me. Being a part of this current council has been a real privilege as well.
While we all want to accomplish a lot in our term, we are all very cognizant of the financial challenges facing residents in our community. Not just in this year, but in every year since we got elected.
The provincial economy wasn’t kind in 2015 and we certainly have families in our community that experienced job layoffs. We have been trying to balance and maintain the current service levels offered to our residents and yet keep our tax increases as low as possible. I wanted to include this small table showing tax increases over the years so everyone had a very clear understanding of the direction of this council:
2011 – 5.7% tax increase
2012 – 4.9% tax increase
2013 – 6.2% tax increase
2104 – 2.5% reduction
2015 – 2.9% tax increase
2016 – .56% tax increase
I will continue to strive for the best quality of life we can all be afforded and work hard to keep Cochrane the community of choice that it is!
Merry Christmas to you all and all the best in 2016.
Thank you for all the support you have shown me, it is very much appreciated.
