WEDNESDAY MARCH 25, 2015
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PoCo sees minor taxrate increase OWNER OF AVERAGE SINGLE-FAMILY HOME WILL PAY AN EXTRA $35 A YEAR
Jeremy DEUTSCH jdeutsch@thenownews.com Property owners in PoCo will see a pretty minor increase on their tax bills later this spring. On Monday, PoCo council gave the first three readings to the budget, which includes a property-tax increase of 1.49 per cent, which works out to $29 for the average single-family home (valued at $526,175), $22 for the average townhouse and $13 for the average apartment. A 3.4-per-cent increase to the solid waste levy adds an additional $6 to the total tax increase for the year. Broken down, $25 of the increase is going toward financing the cost of a new recreation centre, while the other $4 is being put away for long-term infrastructure funding. Mayor Greg Moore suggested without the two projects, the city could have offered residents another year without a property tax increase. However, he said based on feedback from residents, the public is willing to pay extra for a new recreation centre. “We felt we had a pretty good indication from our residents that they were wanting to see the rec centre expanded and therefore to see this part of the tax go up for it,” the mayor said. Last year, the city passed a budget that included a 0.21-percent decrease, the first in recent memory. CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
LISA KING/NOW
FINALLY! The Bailey bridge linking Coquitlam with New Westminster opened earlier this week, connecting twoway traffic over the Brunette River. The bridge had long been a contentious issue between the cities, dating back two decades, and was the source of both litigation and provincial arbitration before its recent completion.
New sinkhole worries
Jeremy DEUTSCH
According to the bulletin from EGRT Construction, the group tasked with building the line, the machine is currently under Clarke Road at Seaview Drive as part of regular maintenance that involves inspecting and replacing the cutter head tools before the machine advances. The bulletin said while maintenance
jdeutsch@thenownews.com Could a third sinkhole be forming beneath the ground where the Evergreen Line tunnel is being built in Port Moody? That’s the concern from residents living in the area after a bulletin was sent out Monday regarding more issues with the tunnel boring machine.
was underway — despite the construction of a subsurface grout wall in front of the machine — some ground material entered the machine’s chamber. “Crews will be drilling bore holes from the road surface of Clarke Road and Seaview Drive to investigate the grout wall constructed earlier this month,” the CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
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