Been more than a month since my last post on the Weyerhaeuser tax rate issue. Actually, this is discussion the city had with all members of the heavy industry tax class in Kamloops. There are 4 companies in this class.
Mayor Terry Lake, Councillor Peter Milobar, Chief Admin Officer Randy Diehl, and Director of Finance Sally Edwards formed a committee that researched this issue thoroughly, met with the involved businesses. and briefed the rest of Council at significant milestones in the process.
They did a great job.
In the end, they steered away from giving special tax exemptions to any one company, satisfied heavy industry's (and specifically Weyerhaeuser's) request for greater tax fairness. and made a committment to residential taxpayers not to unduly shift the tax burden over to them. The commitment to heavy industry is that the city will limit any tax increases to them to 1% annually for the next two years.
Since Weyerhaeuser started the discussion on this issue, it is important to note that they are on board with the solution. They might still have difficulty being viable in Kamloops but council has signaled our support fo their efforts to be profitable in the community.
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