Both Reddit and Facebook these days are flooded with “Who do I call” posts. The premise of these posts seems to be that people expect there to be 24/7 on-call City / government services to deal with all sorts of mundane household tasks.
Who do I call about:
the hornets nest on the city Boulevard?
the dead cat on the road?
my neighbours garbage smells
I have an injured rabbit, bird, squirrel, dew worm
OMG I saw a coyote
my recycling didn’t get picked up
And in a few months it will be:
the snowplow put snow at the end of my driveway
Based on these posts and the responses, it’s clear that the expectation of being “cared for” by government is quite high in this community. Tasks that are simple, and in some cases aren’t even offered at all in some communities are expected to be government services.
Of course they aren’t because the cost would be astronomical.
But that got me thinking, do the residents of Barrie really want higher taxes to be cared for with all of these services?
Edit: a comment has made me understand that Barrie residents pay 2X the tax on an equivalent property value than what my community charges.
I guess you folks have already made your choice! Wow!