The report presented to the operations committee this week on the costs associated with the operation of the city-owned trailer parks does not take into consideration some very important numbers.
The first thing that needs to be added to the equation is the loss of yearly tax revenue because the city owns the land.
So, unless the revenue from these city-owned trailer parks is increased to cover the loss of tax revenue, each and every taxpayer is subsidizing these trailer parks on a yearly basis — not only by covering the operating losses, but also the loss of tax revenue.
The city has no business operating seasonal trailer parks. They are not an essential service and, in fact, the city is using taxpayer dollars to compete with privately owned trailer parks.
This is the worst kind of unfair and subsidized competition there is on the part of government, a privately owned trailer park, which pays property taxes, has to stand by and watch as the property taxes they pay are used to subsidize the city-owned trailer parks that compete against them.
So what does our council ask staff to do about this travesty? Well, they are asking staff to look into expanding the number of camping spaces to increase revenues.
What our councillors should be doing is stopping this blatant use of tax dollars to compete against private industry and sell these trailer park operations off, not expand them.
Dan Melanson
President, Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association
