On first blush, it was disappointing to hear from Mayor Gary St. Onge and city councillors that our property taxes plus some utility user fees were probably going to be increasing in 2011.
One would have thought that with an additional $500,000 being pledged to the City from the provincial government through the new funding formula, that this would be enough to cover any perceived or real shortfall in this taxation year.
But new population statistics being announced this past week brought with them a new reality that local residents are going to have to deal with right now not later.
That new reality gives Estevan a population that is now sneaking up on 13,000. This is well beyond the old Canadian census number of 10,400 taken about four years ago, and is one that the City is forced to live with in terms of applying for "per capita" funding at the provincial and federal levels.
The more accurate Saskatchewan Health card records provide us with the information that Estevan, at around 12,800 to 12,900 citizens within its borders, is once again in boom city mode. Naturally that doesn't include our neighbouring communities and rural municipalities that are also going to struggle with increasing population and development demands, and their growth will also have a certain amount of impact on Estevan's infrastructure.
Put in another way, this city has now witnessed an increase that pretty well matches the entire population of a town like Moosomin within the past few years. Those additional people have to be accommodated with full civic services within a taxation environment that will take a few years to catch up.
So digesting a modest tax increase now is probably the best possible solution because if we let things slide, there would be no catching up in the near future.
With new subdivisions blooming practically every four months and a frantic construction pace to accommodate, this is not the time to holler "whoa" in the Energy City.
Rapid expansion, while welcome, can become quite frightening. If a green light is provided for a $1.2 billion clean coal project this spring, coupled with continuing rapid growth in the oil patch, a large Energy Training Institute project and two hotels already underway, we can only imagine the pressures that are going to be placed on local contractors, civic and business infrastructures and developers. It's all welcomed and they will all be accommodated, but at a cost. This brings us back to the comment we made at the start of this editorial.
There is no room or time to stop and catch our breath. All engines of growth are in full throttle, full forward and that means we'll have to pay a little extra if we want to be along for the ride.
If there is extra money being made in Estevan, and we're certain that there is, then there is extra money that is going to have to be spent to keep our city moving forward.
