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Share your budget thoughts

Each year, the City of Estevan asks local residents to share their thoughts on the budget. And most years, the city receives little feedback.

Each year, the City of Estevan asks local residents to share their thoughts on the budget.

And most years, the city receives little feedback. The Estevan Chamber of Commerce will provide their opinions on the document with property taxes for businesses usually among the chamber’s biggest concerns.

And you might get one or two other people who will voice their thoughts on the budget.

But for the most part, the level of feedback for the budget has been disappointing. The city tries to be transparent and accountable with the public, but people don’t jump at the chance. They’ll gripe and complain over something as trivial as front yard garbage pickup or speed humps on Wellock Road, but when it comes to the budget, they’re silent.

And so the budget meetings pass by quietly and quickly, and then people wonder why their opinions aren’t sought out for other topics.

We want to see plenty of feedback for the 2019 budget. There might not be as much to talk about this year, since for the first time in many years, the city has opted to leave property taxes and utility rates the same.

If you want to write in to council to tell them that you support the decision to hold the line on property taxes, go for it. If you want to write in to tell them you would rather see a small property tax increase this year, then that’s a good thing, too. (You would likely be the first person in Estevan’s history to write to council and ask for a property tax hike, but we’d love to see that).

If you want to tell council that they need to reconsider their budget priorities, and direct more money towards finishing King Street, then we hope you’ll do so.

If there is a contentious point in this year’s budget, it’s likely the omission of money for King Street. There’s one section that still has to be finished, from Cundall Drive to Kohaly Avenue. But that section of King Street has undergrounds, driving up the cost of the project up considerably.

King Street will feel incomplete until that section is finished. The portion of King through the Pleasantdale valley is often one of the most troublesome stretches of road in the city for some time.

To complete King Street, it would take a sizable tax increase, considerable cuts in other infrastructure spending (think the expansion of the police station and renovations to the Power Dodge Ice Centre) or additional borrowing.

We do ask that your opinions are shared in a constructive fashion. Please refrain from personal attacks, insults and derogatory comments.

Bringing your concerns to council and city management is credible. You might think your opinions have credibility when you post them on Facebook or Twitter or other social media platforms, but usually they don’t, especially if you don’t use your actual first and last name.

You might think the best way to go is to share your thoughts on coffee row, but it isn’t.

Go about things the right way. Share your thoughts to the right people.

After all, when we articulate our concerns directly to the people charged with making decisions about our city, it shows that we care, and we’re willing to go through the proper channels.

When council receives lots of constructive feedback on an issue, it makes them more likely to seek the public’s thoughts again in the future.

And when we share our opinions with decision-makers, it reflects an engaged and informed community that wants to see Estevan move forward in a positive fashion.