At the April 25 Napanee Council meeting, the council approved a tax that will force residents to pay for 25 bag tags for the last half of this year at $4/tag for a total of $100 and in subsequent years you will be forced to pay for 50 bag tags for a total cost of $200.
These costs will be added to your tax bill. These tags will be mailed to each residence at a cost of over $10,000. There were three deputations against this policy at last nights meeting. I made one of the deputations. Only councillor Bill Martin seemed to get the implication of this tax. Over the last five years Napanee residents have only put out, on the average, 0.57 bags of garbage a week or approximately one bag every two weeks. We are now being forced to accept and pay for almost double the required tags. Many residents, like our family, only put out a bag of garbage every four or five weeks or about 12 tags per year. We are now required to accept and pay for 50 tags per year. This is going against any attempt residents have made to reduce the garbage they put out at the curb. There will be more garbage put out at the curb because of this policy. Where is the vision of our town council. The other disturbing fact is that this tax is going to hurt those who can least afford it the most. Take a resident who is paying only $1,200 in property taxes. Assume they put out a bag of garbage every two weeks. On an annual basis they are now forced to pay for 25 unwanted bag tags for a total of $100 which is unnecessarily being added to their tax bill. This tax is being added to the “Town” position of the tax bill, which in most cases is 50 per cent of your total tax bill. Fifty per cent of their $1,200 tax bill is $600. The $100 of unnecessary bag tag tax will add an additional 16.6 per cent tax to the Town portion of their tax bill. The town will boast that they have kept the tax increase to 2.89 per cent this year. That is not true. They are trying to hide additional taxes under the guise of a bag tag tax levy. This is the wrong approach that will penalize those who are trying to reduce the amount of garbage they produce. Many residents buy their bag tags ahead of time and may already have paid for the tags they need for the next year. They will still be forced to pay for another 50 tags on an annual basis. This is just wrong. We have a waste diversion committee. The town council was unable to explain why this committee was not consulted before bringing forward this policy. Councillor Martin was also frustrated that this committee was not included in these discussions.
I suggest that if you are opposed to this policy that you return your unwanted tags to the town and demand a refund. If they refuse to give you a refund, then refuse to pay the portion of your tax levy in the amount equal to the tags that you have returned.
Ron Murray
Napanee