Surrey - The Editor, Re: "Hepner says 'Yes' vote is simply 'common sense,'" the Now, Feb. 17.
As a taxpaying resident of Surrey, I find it both disturbing and undemocratic that the City of Surrey is spending as much as $300,000 of taxpayers' dollars to fundthe publicity for their partisan "Yes" position in the upcoming transit referendum.It is clear from recent polls, letters to the editor and from spotty attendance at pro "Yes" events that a significant percentage of the city's residents do not support the proposed 0.5 per cent increase to our provincial sales tax to fund TransLink's projects.It is completely irrelevant that the "amount is equal to the property tax on 115 homes" as Mayor Linda Hepner is quoted as saying regarding the lower figure of $200,000 she provides - a classic example of using spin to placate those who may object to the amount and distract from the real issue here, which is questionable use of taxpayer dollars.Yes folks, the funds being used to pay for the city's "Yes" campaign are derived from the taxes collected from "we the residents" of Surrey, some of who are in the "Yes" camp in the referendum and some who are in the "No" camp.I have not made a final decision on how I will vote in the referendum but you can be sure that bloated TransLink executives' salaries and an empty $4 million parking lot in South Surrey will likely be playing a major role in my decision.Mayor and council: I wholly disagree with the use of taxpayer dollars to fund any position that the City of Surrey officially supports and I'm not even sure if municipal governments should even be taking positions on these types of issues given the blatant conflict of interest between the city and some of its residents.Perhaps Hepner and council would be personally willing dig into their own pockets instead of ours to fund their upcoming publicity campaign?Carl KatzSurrey