GLOBAL WARMING STALLED POLITICALLY
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OLD AND NEW TO GO SIDE BY SIDE
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Wednesday, November 12, 2014 NewsLeader A1
MEET CANDIDATES FOR CITY COUNCIL
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WEDNESDAY
NOVEMBER 12 2014 www.newwestnewsleader.com
The Better at Home program celebrated a year helping seniors. As We Age Page A23
P4PE endorses five for school board Parents group only backs two incumbents Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
Ken Basso checks out some of the celebrity ties that are being auctioned online by Royal City Jewellers to raise money for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. See Page A5.
City finances confuse candidates Candidates baffled why New West putting money in the bank at same time it is borrowing Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
Harm Woldring has done his homework, but he’s far from knowing all the answers. He’s spent hours and hours poring over the books. He’s read spreadsheet after spreadsheet. And he’s still confused. The subject the candidate for New Westminster council is struggling
over is the city’s finances, a main focus of his campaign in the Nov. 15 civic election. From what Woldring can figure out, the city had $102.5 million in bonds with the Municipal Finance Authority at the end of 2013. He said New West also carried over $37.5 million and there’s another $40 million being put aside this year for a total of $180 million in reserves by his math. But the city, he said, also had $65
million worth of debt at the end of last year, and that was before the final figures on the Anvil Centre construction were in. “Why are we putting money into the bank and going into debt at the same time?” wondered Woldring. The owner of the Wine Factory on Front Street claims the city’s budgets don’t align with the financial statements. “What’s going on? They’re not transparent. The finances are so murky,” said Woldring.
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The way he sees it municipalities, including New West, are collecting taxes in advance for capital projects, banking it and then using that money as collateral to borrow money to build infrastructure. “It doesn’t make sense. There is no economic theory to support it,” said Woldring. As for taxes, in doing his “homework” Woldring has produced charts to show New West has the highest commercial and industrial taxes and the third highest residential taxes.
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A New Westminster parents group has endorsed only two incumbent school trustee candidates and three newcomers for the Nov. 15 civic election. Parents for Public Education in New Westminster (P4PE) have backed board of education chair Jonina Campbell and trustee MaryAnn Mortensen. Both are seeking just their second term on the board. Campbell is a New Westminster and District Labour Council-backed candidate. Mortensen is an independent who ran under the Voice New Westminster banner in 2011. The group’s members, at a meeting held Thursday night, did not endorse long-time trustees Michael Ewen and James Janzen who have support from the NWDLC. They also did not give their blessing to two-term trustee Casey Cook, who was also a Voice candidate three years ago. They did back firsttime candidates Mark Gifford, Jeremy Perry and Kelly Slade-Kerr. Please see STORY, A4