To the Editor,
Last week’s Nanaimo city council e-town hall meeting on the 2015 budget was very shocking. I learned that $3.5 million of our tax money, each and every year, is used to keep the Vancouver Island Conference Centre afloat. Ouch, did you hear that amount?
City taxpayers cannot go on forever dumping so much help into this bottomless pit, which cost us $72.5 million to build in the first place. There must be other uses found, and lickety-split, or God forbid the city will probably want to sell this sleepy hollow for a buck like they did with the city hall annex. Ouch, and ouch again.
Two per cent of the city’s $192.1 million budget this year went to coddle the almost cobwebbed home awaiting lots of conventioneers. With so much loot vanishing into thin air I would not hold our breath that a proposed new hotel, if ever built, that is receiving a 10-year tax exemption, would pull us out of this huge and ongoing financial sinkhole.
A new plan to get us out of the conference centre mess needs to be thought of and put into play – now.
Kevan ShawNanaimo