Demerged towns kick at paying
The 15 demerged towns on the island of Montreal think they’re paying an unfair proportion of shared services with Montreal itself. Most of them are wealthier than the city – what do they expect?
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Ian 12:20 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
I dunno, proportional returns?
Not having the numbers in front of me, whether the demerged towns have more or less money doesn’t seem to be the issue here, it’s about paying 38% of services with only 12% of the population. How are those calculations arrived at? Are the towns expected to pay on the basis of population, tax base, total area, or some combination thereof? What’s the rationale here? It seems simple enough to lay out a table for the demerged towns and if they’re wrong, well tell them to go suck eggs.
One example that immediately comes to mind is Mile End vs Outremont – Outremont has the reputation of being all rich enclaves for the super wealthy but I can tell you for a fact that I could buy a floor of a triplex in Outremont for less than in Mile End, the population density is almost exaclty the same, and it’s mostly Hassidim on my street just like it is one block into Outremont and one bloick into Mile End.
That aside, this seems like another opportunity for that big, big conversation Plante promised about defunding the police. If the demerged towns feel that they pay too much for the cops (and they all have their own cops anyhow) maybe they shouldn’t have to pay a disproportionate amount. It does sound like it’s only fair, at least without seeing a table of how these distributions have been determined…
DeWolf 12:26 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
The CTV journalist made a mistake. Direct quote from Beny Masella: “Nos villes comptent 12 % de la population de l’agglomération de Montréal, mais on assume 18 % des coûts.”
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2023-02-05/services-d-agglomeration/montreal-ouvert-a-revoir-la-facture-des-villes-defusionnees.php
Ian 13:31 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
OK well that doesn’t seem like such a big discrepancy, practically a rounding error.
Can we still talk about defunding the police though?
steph 14:56 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
Isn’t that exactly the way it goes for property taxes? If your neighbour’s house is worth more than yours, he’ll pay more taxes for the same services.
Joey 15:09 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
Mile End doesn’t have the equivalent of the portion of Outremont south of Côte Ste Catherine – on the realtor website I see three Mile-End properties >$2M. There are 51 in Outremont.
Ian 15:47 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
Sure, but I bet the density is a lot lower in the super rich part of Outremon, too. If you look at all of the Plateau you’ll find lots more properties >2m. I was specifically talking about lower Outremont where it’s adjacent to Mile End.
Here it would actually be less expensive to live a block west of Hutchison. There’s even still students in that part of Outremont, students have almost vanished from Mile End.
Ephraim 17:30 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
@Ian – We need a new ways of saying that. How about rebudget the community policing?
Ian 18:10 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
Recontextualize our security outputs to cross-leverage our community synergies?
Blork 19:03 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
I tend to agree with Ephraim. “Defund the police” is (to me at least) too closely associated with dingalings who think everything would be fine if there were no police at all.
Ian 19:14 on 2024-02-24 Permalink
Maybe this is a problem we can solve with robot clowns.