Kudos and carves for billboard tax
Toronto's arts community -- at least that part of it which spends a lot of time hanging around City Hall trolling for money -- feels it's entitled to its entitlements.
It's claiming credit for having lobbied city council successfully this week to slap a new, $10.4 million-a-year tax on billboards.
It also insists it's entitled to the lion's share of the new cash.
That's about $9 million annually, which will be dispersed by the city's budget committee, after council this week earmarked $1.4 million of the new revenues for enforcing the new bylaw.
A spokesman for the arts community insisted the city has a "moral responsibility" to cough up the cash for the arts because it helped push successfully for the new tax.
While nothing's been decided yet, a number of councillors, including budget committee chair Shelley Carroll and Coun. Joe Mihevc, appear to agree with handing out more money to the arts.
Sigh.
To begin, we have just four words to say to the arts community.
The first two, which are printable, are: "Thank you."
SMART SUGGESTION
It was smart of you to suggest this new revenue stream to council, if that's what happened, even if the billboard industry is upset, which is to be expected.
Our next two words, however, can't be printed in a family paper.
But if we could, they would stress our anger that a city hall lobby group apparently feels it's entitled to direct the spending of millions of tax dollars to itself, and that some councillors appear to agree.
Time for a reality check on all sides. That is, Toronto has a $500-million deficit this year and the city in fact has a "moral responsibility" to all taxpayers to gets its finances under control.
Simply raising taxes and then instantly shipping out the newly-generated revenues to every special interest group with its hand out is not going to solve the city's long-term financial problems.
Finally, too many people in and around City Hall these days seem to think the city's power to tax represents a piggy bank they're entitled to draw on at will.
They are long overdue for a lesson in humility from voters.
Letters to the Editor
"Miller goes deeper into the red" (Dec. 8): Well done, Sue-Ann Levy. Mayor Miller and his gang are still in denial if they think Torontonians are not outraged that the mayor's 2010 capital budget proposal allows the city to take on more debt to be paid out over 30 years.
1 comment:
Hey - this editorial is misinformed. I first proposed the idea of a billboard tax for art to the city in 2002 and have been pushing since. One of the main rationales was that billboards don't give you back anything in exchange for your attention like other media (i.e. TV = 75% entertaining or informative content, 25% ads). Billboards don't have to do that since people don't have a choice in viewing them. Hence the tax and allotment to city beautification through arts in public spaces.
Check out this EKOS Poll - the majority are less likely to support it if it does not go to art: http://www.beautifulcity.ca/ekos.pdf
Then check out http://www.beautifulcity.ca for the full campaign info.
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