For every year that he has been Mayor, Tony Van Bynen has hiked your taxes and user fees.
The question on everyone's minds is, "What does he have to show for it?"
Is your community demonstrably better because of things he has done?
He might point to the Magna Centre as an improvement. Pay no attention to the neighbourhood arena and pool that shut down though. And never mind the Maystar lawsuit that actually resulted in us paying millions more than what was budgeted.
He might point to the River Walk Commons as an accomplishment. But that would have us ignoring the considerable (90%+) financial contribution of the provincial and federal government.
Maybe he would point to the trails systems as his big achievement but that would have us believing that we have something unique and special.
Take a look at the Richmond Hill skating trail for a comparison: http://www.richmondhill.ca/subpage.asp?pageid=leisure_richmond_green_skate_trail
The fact remains, for the average Newmarket resident, there isn't much that we can say the Gruesome Twosome do well.
On the jobs front: Newmarket has regressed. Much of the local economy is in decline. This weekend for example, Everest College joined the long list of businesses that failed in Newmarket. Wasn't post secondary education an economic priority of the Mayor? Taxpayers are wondering about the return on investment for the money paid to consultants to promote post secondary education in Newmarket.
On the community building front: Community events are a pale shadow of what they were like during the tenure of Ray Twinney.
On the services front: The operations of the town is not going well. Employees disrespect the public by not returning voice messages, street plowing is late, garbage pick up issues, and grass isn't cut in the parks.
The only thing we have to look forward to from this mayor and his cronies is our annual tax hikes, increased water rates, and more user fees.
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